Month: September 2009


Getting rid of your English accent when speaking a foreign language

Getting rid of your English accent when speaking a foreign language

written by Benny Lewis

Right, let’s get down to business! If you want to sound like a local, you need to work on many things and your foreigner accent is one of them. When I speak in English I’ve got a lovely wee (slightly watered down) Irish accent. However, when trying to speak my first foreign language I had […]

Finding the right accommodation for immersion in a culture

written by Benny Lewis

Hello from Rio de Janeiro!! Since I’m still just settling in (and getting over jetlag), tonight will be the first time that I go out on the town! Obviously the main part of this mission is to get out and meet Cariocas who can help me understand their language and culture a little bit more, […]


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Reading time: 7 minutes

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My next mission: Become Brazilian in 3 months!

written by Benny Lewis

EDIT: This mission was a success! You can read how I spoke Portuguese with no foreign accent, and how I adapted to life in Rio. I also wrote about why I love Brazilians so much :=) After learning 6 languages to fluency in 6 years of travels, and learning to speak Czech in just two […]


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Reading time: 10 minutes

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How to speak a language pretty well, starting from scratch, in just two months

How to speak a language pretty well, starting from scratch, in just two months

written by Benny Lewis

Want to speak Spanish well, speak French well, speak German well, or any language for that matter? If I can do this with Czech starting from zero, imagine what you can do! I’d like to summarise everything I’ve discussed on the site regarding my earliest intensive language experiment. I was initially aiming for fluency in 3 […]


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Reading time: 5 minutes

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Hitting a brick wall in your language progress

written by Benny Lewis

You can call it a brick-wall or a plateau, but if you work on a language long enough you may eventually hit it; a point where you simply aren’t making any progress. This has happened several times for me in the past in other languages, especially after sprinting into it in the initial stages and […]


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Reading time: 8 minutes

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