How are the things we're talking about being talked about somewhere else in the world? Gregory Warner tells stories that follow familiar conversations into unfamiliar territory. At a time when the world seems small but it's as hard as ever to escape our echo chambers, Rough Translation takes you places.
When We Talk About Love Stories
We leap into the gap between love stories and real life. And hear a sneak peek of Rough Translation's newest season! Subscribe here to Gregory's substack.
7/12/2023 • 25 minutes, 53 seconds
Fan Favorites: How to Speak Bad English
Gregory talks "inside baseball" of American English. And we revisit an episode that sparked a lot of conversation among listeners in 2021–about the global pursuit of "good English" and what it takes to change the multi-billion dollar industry built around it.Write to us at [email protected] and follow Gregory's Substack.Read more at NPR's global health and development blog, Goats and Soda.Tower Of Babble: Nonnative Speakers Navigate The World Of 'Good' And 'Bad' EnglishPrepone That! Your Accent Is Funny! Readers Share Their ESL Stories
5/10/2023 • 38 minutes, 9 seconds
Fan Favorites: Dream Boy and the Poison Fans
The unlikely places that fandom can take us, and how to know when we've gone too far. This week, we revisit an episode from 2020. And don't forget to subscribe to Gregory's Substack.
4/26/2023 • 39 minutes, 27 seconds
Fan Favorites: Anna in Somalia
Gregory tells a story about his first job out of college. And we revisit an episode from 2017. Also, what's your favorite Rough Translation episode? Let us know.
4/12/2023 • 36 minutes, 49 seconds
This Is Not A Goodbye
Our host Gregory Warner reads your tweets and drops some big news about Rough Translation. Subscribe to Gregory's Substack and follow him on Twitter to stay on the journey. And coming soon: episodes revisiting our archives, plus an exciting summer season in collaboration with NPR's international desk.
3/31/2023 • 2 minutes, 13 seconds
Ukraine: The Handoff
We travel to Ukraine to follow a shipment of abortion pills, and discover a complicated conversation about pregnancy and choice in wartime. Part 2 of our collaboration with Radiolab.
2/3/2023 • 31 minutes, 17 seconds
Ukraine: Under The Counter
One weekend. An amateur smuggling operation. A wartime mission. The story, in collaboration with Radiolab.
1/20/2023 • 40 minutes, 59 seconds
The Cat Must Still Be Fed
A hyperlocal news site in Red Hook, N.Y. posts a job opening. A journalist in Ukraine applies. And what readers think of as "local news" is going to change dramatically.
8/3/2022 • 39 minutes, 56 seconds
The Good Russians
Hundreds of thousands of Russians are leaving Russia. They're facing an uncertain welcome abroad. Poet and writer Linor Goralik joins us to read from "Exodus 22," her uncomfortably frank conversations with Russians who – before the war – lived in a Westernized bubble, ignoring the mounting threats of Putin's regime. Then, the bubble burst.
4/27/2022 • 20 minutes, 1 second
The Scarf and the Snuffbox
What can a blank piece of paper, four ballerinas, a scarf and snuff box mean in Russia? A conversation with Russian Anthropologist Alexandra Arkhipova about how anti-war protestors resist the war in Ukraine through code and hidden messages.
4/15/2022 • 17 minutes, 28 seconds
Letter of Unhappiness
When Naira calls her parents back home in Russia to talk about the war in Ukraine, they treat her as an outsider and a threat. She finds a way to break through the propaganda wall, with inspiration from a chain letter.
3/30/2022 • 15 minutes, 50 seconds
The Culture Front
When protecting a language is used as justification for war, how can its speakers fight back? A conversation with Russian speakers of the diaspora who are rethinking their relationship to language, identity, and the Russian community.
3/15/2022 • 40 minutes, 36 seconds
Fighting Words In Ukraine
Vladimir Putin joined the KGB at age 23. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy got his early training in a no less Soviet institution–the world of competitive comedy. We update our 2019 episode about a high-stakes comedy competition in Ukraine.
3/2/2022 • 31 minutes, 23 seconds
Presenting 'TED Radio Hour': Work, Play, Rest
The past few years have shaken the fundamental ways we live. It's... disorienting. But it's also an opportunity to reexamine how we spend our time. In this episode from TED Radio Hour, speakers investigate evolving notions of what it means to pay our bills.
2/16/2022 • 50 minutes, 40 seconds
May We Have This Dance?
A jazz dance born in Harlem in the 1920s ends up in a tiny Swedish town. What happens when Black dancers try to bring the Lindy Hop home?
12/22/2021 • 43 minutes, 50 seconds
Moms In Translation
An Irish journalist discovers she belongs in a place she's never been. A 6-year-old boy decides he's from another country. Stories about finding home far from home.
12/15/2021 • 41 minutes, 59 seconds
Tasting At A Distance
You can zoom around the world through sight and sound, but you can't taste at a distance, right? Stories about what happens when we try.
12/8/2021 • 33 minutes, 26 seconds
Presenting 'It's Been A Minute': White Supremacy And Its Online Reach
For close to a year, Talia Lavin went undercover in white supremacist online communities, creating fake personas that would gain her access to the dark reaches of the internet normally off-limits to her, a Jewish woman. That research laid the groundwork for her book, Culture Warlords: My Journey Into the Dark Web of White Supremacy. Lavin talks to It's Been A Minute host Sam Sanders about what it was like to infiltrate those online spaces, what she learned, and how white supremacy cannot exist without anti-Semitism.
12/9/2020 • 29 minutes, 25 seconds
Presenting 'Louder Than A Riot': Lyrics On Trial
On this bonus drop, we feature an episode from the NPR podcast Louder Than A Riot called "Lyrics on Trial."
11/6/2020 • 34 minutes
New Season: School of Scandal... Coming Sept. 16
We're back with a special series, Rough Translation's "School of Scandal," stories about people around the world calling each other out and taking each other down to change the status quo.
9/9/2020 • 1 minute, 39 seconds
Preview: Rough Translation In Ukraine
Listen to hear a preview of a special two-part episode about Ukraine, reported by Gregory Warner.
11/13/2019 • 1 minute, 21 seconds
The Refugee's Dating Coach
A Syrian refugee in Berlin hopes to find love but is stumped by German dating codes and is terrified of crossing the line between flirting and harassing. A professional 'flirt coach' steps in to be his guide. (For photos of Sophia and Aktham: bit.ly/Roughly7)
9/25/2017 • 39 minutes, 58 seconds
Om Alone In India
A day of yoga in the US. A yoga war in India. A court case in California and why the Indian government is watching it. A story about the poses that bind us. (Tell us about yourself. Fill out our survey: npr.org/roughtranslationsurvey)
9/18/2017 • 32 minutes, 18 seconds
Anna In Somalia
A man is trapped in a remote prison. And he's trapped in his own mind. Until he hears a knock on the wall.... and words from another time and place.
9/12/2017 • 31 minutes, 42 seconds
American Surrogate
A Chinese mom hires an American surrogate to carry her baby. Each needs something from the other that is hard to admit. The next 9 months will be a crash course in transcontinental communication. And the meaning of family.
9/5/2017 • 42 minutes, 37 seconds
The Congo We Listen To
It made headlines worldwide: Hundreds of women raped in one Congolese village. But when one researcher arrives in town, something feels off. (Note: This episode contains descriptions of violence.)
8/28/2017 • 41 minutes, 26 seconds
Ukraine vs. Fake News
Fake news from Russia helped spark a real war in Ukraine. What can Ukraine's fight against fake news teach the US?
8/21/2017 • 29 minutes, 27 seconds
Brazil In Black And White
Two radically different ways of seeing race come into sudden conflict in Brazil, provoking a national conversation about who is Black? And who is not Black enough?
8/14/2017 • 32 minutes, 23 seconds
Introducing Rough Translation
Travel with us. Each week we go to a new country to hear a story that says something about what's happening in the United States. Subscribe now.
