Welcome to Blazing Language. I’m Kenn Nesbitt, and before we dive into the language and culture you’ll hear in future episodes, I thought I’d take a few minutes to tell you a little about who I am, how I got here, and why I created this project.

If you’ve listened to the welcome episode, you already know what Blazing Language is and how to use it. This episode is about the journey that led me to create it.

Like many Americans, I grew up speaking only English. Unlike some language enthusiasts, I wasn’t fascinated by foreign languages as a child. In fact, I found them intimidating. I assumed that learning another language was something other people could do, but probably not me.

What I was fascinated by was English itself. I loved words, stories, and the way language could make people laugh, think, and imagine. That fascination eventually led me to become a writer.

But before writing became my full-time career, I spent many years working in technology.

In the mid-1990s, I worked at Microsoft, where I helped design large-scale software systems. Around the same time, I was also writing regularly for numerous computer magazines as a columnist and technical writer, explaining complex technology in ways that people could easily understand.

After leaving Microsoft, I founded my own software company. There I created what was, at the time, the world’s first visual HTML 3 web page designer, a program called WebEdit. Later I developed a bug-tracking system called BugCollector, which was used by organizations around the world, including the Human Genome Project and the Sony PlayStation development team.

Looking back, I realize that software development taught me something that has stayed with me throughout my life: complicated problems become much easier when you break them into small, manageable pieces and build reliable systems.

Eventually, though, I realized my heart was pulling me in a different direction.

In the early 2000s, I left the software industry to focus entirely on writing for children. Over the years I’ve published twenty-six children’s books and thousands of poems. In 2013, I had the tremendous honor of being named the Children’s Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation.

Writing gave me the opportunity to help children discover the joy of language. But years later, I found myself becoming a student again.

In 2020, I decided to learn Portuguese.

I wasn’t moving to Brazil. I didn’t need it for work. I simply wanted to see if I could learn another language as an adult.

The experience surprised me.

Not because it was easy—it wasn’t—but because I slowly discovered that learning a language wasn’t nearly as mysterious as I had always imagined.

Then, beginning in 2022, I spent the next three years learning Spanish.

Somewhere along the way, I realized I wasn’t just learning Portuguese and Spanish.

I was learning how to learn languages.

I began experimenting with different methods, reading about language acquisition, trying new tools, talking with tutors, building flashcards, listening to podcasts, reading books, and paying close attention to what actually helped me improve—and what didn’t.

What I discovered is that there isn’t one magic technique.

Language learning works best when you combine several approaches that reinforce one another: listening, reading, speaking, reviewing vocabulary, and, perhaps most importantly, staying curious about the people and cultures behind the language.

That’s really where the idea for Blazing Language began.

I wanted to create the kind of resource I wish I’d had when I started—a place where language learning feels less like studying and more like discovering the world.

Every episode introduces you to something interesting: history, food, traditions, travel, everyday life, famous places, fascinating people, and the little cultural details that make each language come alive.

Because when you’re genuinely interested in what you’re listening to, learning becomes much easier.

And because each episode is short and approachable, it’s easy to build the most important language-learning habit of all: showing up consistently.

I’m still learning myself.

I plan to continue my own language journey with Italian, French, and perhaps even German. So in many ways, I’m walking the same road as you.

I don’t claim to know everything.

I’m simply sharing what I’ve learned through years of experimenting, studying, making mistakes, and discovering what really works.

Whether you’re just beginning your first foreign language or adding another one to your collection, I’m glad you’re here.

I hope these episodes help you become a more confident listener, a more capable speaker, and, perhaps most importantly, a more curious traveler through the world’s languages and cultures.

Thanks for joining me on this journey.

Let’s start learning together.