Stephanie Tuerk Loves Learning Languages

No need to break your Duolingo streak, when Stephanie Tuerk joins us to make a case for learning languages. She traces her journey from high school French to PhD-era German to humbling Russian, arguing that language learning is less about fluency and more about a gateway into culture, history, and a completely different relationship with your own mind. Stephanie also reflects on the rare pleasure of being a deliberate beginner, and why a language class might be one of the last great third spaces left. Guest Bio Stephanie Tuerk (she/her) is a designer-developer who currently works at a startup making verifiable AI for science. She previously did this work in quantitative policy research context, and loves serving as the translation layer between technical domain expertise and users. She entered the world of interface and product design through data visualization, and prior to that spent time in the fields of architectural design and architectural history. Links Stephanie’s website: https://stephanietuerk.net/ Stephanie on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/stephanietuerk.net Credits Cover design by Raquel Rubio Breternitz.