132: Why to Learn Spanish, with Craig Johnson

I Don't Speak German

IDSG

Politics, News, Currentaffairs, Society & Culture

3.9 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 30 June 2025

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We're delighted to welcome back Craig Johnson - of Fifteen Minutes of Fascism - to chat about the politics and value of native English speakers learning other languages, especially Spanish.

Episode Notes:

Spanish language papers:

Pagina12: left Peronist, Argentina: www.pagina12.com.ar
Proceso, Mexico: www.proceso.com.mx
elDiario.es and Público, Spain: www.eldiario.es, www.publico.es

Again, not an endorsement of these as the best and most perfect news sources in the world, they have their own biases (esp regarding their own domestic left), but good for different perspectives.

Craig:

How to Talk to Your Son About Fascism, book.

15 Minutes of Fascism at Soundcloud

IDSG on 15MoF

Craig's bluesky

Craig's Patreon

Show Notes:

Please consider donating to help us make the show and stay ad-free and independent. Patrons get exclusive access to at least one full extra episode a month plus all backer-only back-episodes.

Daniel's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/danielharper/posts

Jack's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4196618&fan_landing=true

IDSG Twitter: https://twitter.com/idsgpod

Daniel's Twitter: @danieleharper

Jack's (Locked) Twitter: @_Jack_Graham_

Jack's Bluesky: @timescarcass.bsky.social

Daniel's Bluesky: @danielharper.bsky.social

IDSG on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i-dont-speak-german/id1449848509?ls=1

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I do really like that idea. I never even thought of the idea of reading news in Spanish. I can't believe I never, like, I just never popped into my head. It never came to me. It's like, you know, like, oh, that's something you can try, you know? I guess I always thought, like, newspapers would be too difficult for me at my level. The thing is that, like, newspapers are generally written in declarative sentence. Like, they're generally a declarative statement.
0:21.9	Yeah, yeah.
0:22.2	And, like, this happened here.
0:24.0	This person said this about that.
0:25.9	Yeah, yeah.
0:26.4	You know, I mean, the New York Times is famously, you know.
0:29.9	Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:31.0	Yeah, the New York Times is famously written, you know, like between a 10th and 12th grade
0:34.3	reading level.
0:35.3	Yeah.
0:36.1	Many newspapers around the world are written at somewhat higher reading levels, but
0:39.2	you know, like, still, like a lot of it is going to be pretty legible.
0:44.8	Yeah.
0:45.7	So, like, yeah, if you want, I can send you some, some lists of newspapers and news sources
0:51.0	and other companies that I follow.
0:52.2	If you got, if you got some stuff that you, you know, let you, you know, I wouldn't ask you to do work for me.
0:56.1	I'd be glad to.
0:56.7	If you got a list of stuff that you let you keep track of, then I would, I would love to.
1:00.8	I would love to check that out.
1:03.8	Yeah.
1:04.3	And, you know, if this goes well, then maybe, maybe invite you back and we can do, we can do a little bit more um i'm gonna talk about some of the details you could recommend some of those um some of those i would be glad to
1:14.4	periodicals you know yes yeah exactly sorry i'm i'm just trying to use a little bit of it as
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from IDSG, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of IDSG and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.