The Multilingual Self

What happens when the words you need most aren't in the language you were born into?

Chiropractic franchise owner and podcast host, Arndt has lived in the US for more than 25 years, moving between German, English, and Spanish. Isolated during the pandemic, he began learning Spanish almost for fun and fell for Argentina from a distance, a connection close enough that he now records a podcast, Jamás tan argentino, entirely in his third language. When his father was dying in Germany and a final WhatsApp message wouldn't come in German, it was the lyrics of an Argentine song that helped him find the words.

About this conversationNotes and summary, PDFDownload audioSeptember 12, 2026

What do you pass on to your children when the language you give them isn't even your first?

Leadership coach, daughter of a German mother and American father, Sonya grew up shuttling between continents. A Rotary scholarship took her to Medellín, where she wrote a 200-page academic thesis in Spanish and met the Colombian man she would later marry. Today they raise three children together: she speaks to them exclusively in German, he in Spanish, and their oldest attends a Mandarin immersion school. Four languages, one home, and Sonya somewhere in the middle of all of it, which is, she says, the most herself she's ever felt.

About this conversationNotes and summary, PDFDownload audioMay 22, 2026

What happens to your identity when you leave your mother tongue behind and build a life in someone else's?

UX designer and content strategist, Adela came to Argentina in 2015 following someone she loved, a detour from the life in Spain she had planned. She became what may be the first Polish copywriter in Argentine advertising, arguing about grammar and syntax with native colleagues, and winning. Today she thinks, works, and dreams in Spanish, though her friends in Poland say she now speaks Polish with a Spanish melody. She has been with her Argentine partner for over eleven years.

About this conversationNotes and summary, PDFDownload audioApril 28, 2026

What does it mean to earn the right to go unnoticed?

French anthropologist turned Argentine citizen, Rodolphe has called Buenos Aires home for over 15 years, long enough to build a family there, and eventually a passport. He naturalized in 2024, and that's when the real work began: a passport changes how others see you, and suddenly a Spanish that was "good enough" no longer was. He calls his goal el derecho a la indiferencia: the right to board a taxi without being immediately read as foreign.

About this conversationNotes and summary, PDFDownload audioApril 14, 2026

What does it take to choose who you become in another language?

Golf coach with 19 years of experience, Joseph speaks English, Spanish, and German, and reads Latin. He fell in love with Argentine culture through YouTube before he ever set foot there, and decided to make Rioplatense Spanish his own: voseo, sh and all. In Chile, a shopkeeper once mistook him for Argentine.

About this conversationNotes and summary, PDFDownload audioApril 6, 2026