Ep. 9 “Babies can sign before they can talk” Dr. Garcia on pre-speech sign language

Ep. 10 Season 1 WRAPPED!

Kadi looks back on Season 1, shares a few lessons, thanks listeners and guests, and gives a small preview of what’s ahead for I Speak Your Language.

Ep. 9 “Babies can sign before they can talk” Dr. Garcia on pre-speech sign language

In this episode, Kadi sits down with Dr. Joseph Garcia, researcher, educator, and early advocate for using sign language with babies, to explore how infants can communicate before speech develops. They discuss why signing is accessible to babies, how it reduces frustration and strengthens bonding, and what modelling (rather than teaching) looks like in everyday routines. You can find Dr. Garcia’s work and resources here: http://drjosephgarcia.com/ [http://drjosephgarcia.com/]

Ep. 8 “Our Brain Is Always Predicting What We Hear” Dr Matt Davis on the Science of Listening

In this episode, Kadi is joined by cognitive neuroscientist Dr Matt Davis (University of Cambridge) to explore how we understand speech, even when it sounds nothing like speech at all. From noisy cafés to unfamiliar accents to whispered or electronically altered speech, Matt explains how the brain fills in the gaps when what we’re hearing is degraded or difficult to make out. Kadi and Matt walk through live audio demos of sine-wave speech and vocoded speech, offering listeners the rare chance to experience these illusions firsthand. For anyone curious to try the demonstrations themselves, all the audio examples are available on Matt’s research pages: * https://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/personal/matt.davis/vocode/ [https://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/personal/matt.davis/vocode/] * https://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/personal/matt.davis/sine-wave-speech/ [https://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/personal/matt.davis/sine-wave-speech/]

Ep. 7 From ‘Selfie’ to ‘Brain Rot’: Inside the Oxford English Dictionary

Kadi sits down with Fiona McPherson, Executive Editor in the New Words team at the Oxford English Dictionary, for a behind-the-scenes look at how the OED keeps up with an ever-changing English language. From playful slang to pandemic vocabulary, they explore what it really takes for a word to make it into the dictionary... and why some never do. * Oxford University Press feature on the Oxford Word of the Year: https://corp.oup.com/word-of-the-year/ [https://corp.oup.com/word-of-the-year/]

Ep. 6 Leeds City of Languages: Celebrating Multilingualism and Community

In this special episode of I Speak Your Language, produced in celebration of and collaboration with Leeds City of Languages, Kadi is joined by Dr. Sofia Martinho, Associate Professor in Portuguese, and Dr. Bettina Hermoso Gómez, Associate Professor in Spanish, both from the University of Leeds and co-founders of the festival. Together, Sofia and Bettina share how the festival was born, how it brings communities together, and why celebrating linguistic diversity matters more than ever. Taking place from 10–24 November 2025, Leeds City of Languages is a two-week celebration of the 170+ languages spoken across the city, showcasing the linguistic and cultural richness of Leeds through concerts, poetry, language tasters, workshops, and community-led events. What began as a local initiative during Leeds 2023 has now grown into a regional festival connecting schools, libraries, cultural institutions, and grassroots organisations across Yorkshire. Find more details on how to take part here: * https://leedscityoflanguages.leeds.ac.uk/ [https://leedscityoflanguages.leeds.ac.uk/] * https://leedscityoflanguages.leeds.ac.uk/programme/ [https://leedscityoflanguages.leeds.ac.uk/programme/] @leedscityoflanguages