300. Why Don’t We All Speak the Same Lan...

Like tens of millions of people, Stephen Dubner thought he had a penicillin allergy. Like the vast majority, he didn’t. This misdiagnosis costs billions of dollars and causes serious health problems, so why hasn’t it been fixed? We find out in this update of a 2025 episode. SOURC ... Show More

Is the oxymoron really “the secret sauce to everything”? That’s the case Ingels makes in this debut episode of our new video show Better in Person, filmed in Stephen Dubner’s living room. If you'd like to see the video version of Better in Person, watch it on YouTube or Apple Pod ... Show More

Stephen Dubner had an idea for a new project. So he drove to Connecticut and knocked on the door of the master. Dubner’s new TV talk show Better in Person launches July 14 on the Freakonomics YouTube channel. SOURCES: Dick Cavett, writer, former talk show host. RESOURCES: Eye on ... Show More

There are about 7,000 languages spoken around the world -- and they all have different sounds, vocabularies and structures. But do they shape the way we think? Cognitive scientist Lera Boroditsky shares examples of language -- from an Aboriginal community in Australia that uses c ... Show More

Thousands of languages thrive across the globe, yet modern speech technology -- and all of its benefits -- supports just over a hundred. Computational linguist Kalika Bali dreams of a day when technology acts as a bridge instead of a barrier, working passionately to build new and ... Show More

<p>Researchers have catalogued 7,164 languages spoken around the world - some are used daily by billions. Half are spoken by less than 8000 people. The death of a language, when it’s no longer spoken as a first language by anyone living is a deeply significant moment in the cultu ... Show More

Language not only defines humans as a species, placing us head and shoulders above even the most proficient animal communicators, but it also beguiles us with its endless mysteries. How did different languages come to be? Why isn't there just a single language? How does a languag ... Show More

Today's digital world is a reverse tower of Babel. It takes all sorts of different languages to build it. It is this phenomenon that Aleks Krotoski explores in this final edition. 

Michael Rosen talks to neuroscientist Dr Julia Ravey about whether we think and act differently when speaking a non-native language.More and more people are finding themselves speaking multiple languages in our cross-cultural societies. But when we communicate in a different tong ... Show More

Does language shape the way we perceive reality? Can Indigenous wisdom shine a light on a different way forward??! RESOURCES MENTIONED: - Lingthusiasm- The Hatred of Metaphor- Briana Ní Loingsigh's Substack- WordsatWork Tiktok- The Balkanization and Babelification of the Internet ... Show More