This episode is brought to you by Babel.

Babel is a fun way to start learning a language, and I'm always impressed by the care and attention that their language experts put into every lesson.

With Babel, you can start having real conversations in another language in as little as three weeks.

I've found that it really helps me connect with other people when I'm traveling.

When you can talk to local people in their own language, it deepens the whole experience.

During the break, you'll hear one of Babel's language experts unpack why Babel is so effective,

and how it can help immerse you into other cultures.

And as always, we made this episode with full creative control. Here we go.

You're listening to 20,000 Hertz.

I'm Dallas Taylor.

As the creative director at my sound design studio, de facto sound, I often find myself using

made-up words and phrases to get my ideas across,

like cerebral sparklies into an airy release, or bit-crushed flitter-reverse suck drop-out

into a pit of despair, or verify, ramp the music to continue my thoughts.

But while I often end up feeling a little ridiculous,

the sound design team knows exactly what I mean.

For everything else, I'm lucky enough to work with a linguistic expert.

My name is Grace East, and I am a producer at DeFacto Sound and 20,000 Hertz.

Grace is the one who interacts with our clients all day.

And recently, she completed her PhD in linguistics.

So I lived in West Africa for a while doing field research.

And I also wrote a whole dissertation about this particular community that I lived in in Ghana

...