Best Fi3M posts of 2011

It’s that time of the year again! I’m back in Cavan with my family, and sharing my favourite posts on the blog this year

Best language tip posts

Most of the posts below are more related to travel or ideas I wanted to share, but I know many people read the blog for specific inspiration and tips in learning their language – here are some posts that share these tips:

The linguistic genius of adults: Research confirms we’re better learners than kids!

Since this excuse is by among the biggest ones (kids are better learners than adults, so why bother?) I wrote not one, but two posts on the topic. This one refers to scientific research that tests both groups fairly (most comparisons are made in purely academic settings, which I would agree that children probably do better in).

Why adults are better learners than kids (So NO, you’re not too old!)

This post shares some more initial thoughts about how invalid this excuse is.

6 easy ways to roll your R

I’m amazed that some English speakers can be learning a language for a year or more and STILL use an ugly English R in their target language! And they are surprised that some natives don’t want to speak that language with them? I dealt with the R issue first when I was learning Spanish, and this post shares several easy ways English speakers can get started to sound more authentic in the target language.

Why does the language have to be so weird?

Everyone was enjoying this post so much from the Language Hacking League email list, so I decided to share it on the blog – trying to inspire people to look at their language differently rather than complaining so much about the fact that it is different.

Best stories of 2011

Here are two anecdotes that I loved sharing and that were well received by the readers! I’ll be sure to give you more blow-by-blow accounts of particular (mis)adventures in the next year!

Speed dating in Dutch: 25 completely different conversations with natives, 5 weeks into learning the language

Yes, I genuinely went “speed dating” and considered it an excellent opportunity to practise some Dutch even though I had been learning it for only about a month.

This post explains, in great detail, how most of my mini-dates went and how great a chance it was to work on my small talk in Dutch… as well as meeting some pretty girls!

How I escaped from being locked up by the Brazilian federal police

While it actually happened a few years ago, this year I decided to share this pretty funny (and still a bit scary) story of how I used my wits to outsmart the Brazilian Federal police, after they locked me up!

Although, in future I’ll just avoid getting locked up – that’s a much better solution to the problem

Most popular posts of 2011

These posts went ridiculously viral on various social networks and led many new visitors to the blog.

29 life lessons learned in travelling the world for 8 years straight

This one post has been read well over a half a million times. It shares some of my thoughts about people and the world on my 29th birthday, and on my 8 year travel-anniversary.

17 cultural reasons why this European never wants to live in America

Unlike the previous one, this post went viral not because it was an inspirational read, but because of pure controversy. In general I like to frame my cultural experience as positively as possible to promote cultural understanding, but this time I didn’t do that for the reasons explained in the post (and because Americans already have big enough egos to be honest…)

So far it has been accessed a quarter of a million times by people, and has the most comments out of any post ever on this blog (both agreeing with me and disagreeing).

Funniest posts

While these didn’t go hugely viral, I personally had a great time writing them, and enjoyed the confused reaction of people from them!

Introducing the best language learning system in the world: HB 2.0

Products, products, products – apparently the only way some people see to learn a language is by spending money on some pre-packaged course that will solve all their language learning woes. I’ve reviewed some big names like Rosetta Stone and Pimsleur and do not find them to be great at all. When I take on my big language project in January, I will review another big name in the business.

But since everyone wants a sales pitch for something, I gave them one! This post is my sales pitch for HB 2.0 – the “system” that I genuinely do think that you should “invest” in.

April fools’ post – Benny’s confession

When you run a popular blog, no matter what it’s about, even something like language learning, you will get Internet trolls annoying the hell out of you (right now around the holidays, more than usual are coming out from under the rocks to send me annoying messages). And one thing they constantly say is that I’m a”fraud” and don’t really speak these languages that I claim to.

Despite ample Youtube evidence to the contrary, I decided to feed the trolls with this “confession”, explaining in great detail how I “faked” those Youtube videos. I dropped lots of hints in the text (before adding “April fools’” to the title the next day) that it was a joke, but even some regular readers fell for it and got angry with me…

——————

What was your favourite post or video on Fi3M this year? 2012 is going to be even more fun with lots of fun stuff to read and watch, and some very very interesting language missions (starting with a big one! I will reveal that first in the email list on January 2nd, so join it in the top right of the site if you haven’t yet).

So until then, have a great time over the holidays with your family everyone!!

Any other thoughts? Share them in the comments below!

***********************

Enter your email in the top right of the site to subscribe to the Language Hacking League e-mail list for way more tips sent directly to your inbox!

If you enjoyed this post, you will love my TEDx talk! You can get much better details of how I recommend learning a language if you watch it here.

This article was written by Benny Lewis

Comments: If you liked this post or have anything to say, please leave a comment! I love reading them
Just keep in mind that I’ll delete any rude, trolling, spammy, irrelevant or way off-topic comments. If you have a general language learning question, please ask it in the forums. Otherwise please use the search tool on the right for any other question not related to this post.

———————————–

• Results of survey and planned changes to the blog (Very similar post)
• Friday fun: Learning Na'vi for your Avatar (Very similar post)
• Why learning a language is like learning a musical instrument (Very similar post)
• Videos: Baker, David Walsh & Cody McKibb interview Benny (Very similar post)
• Benny's birthday request: 1982 clicks! (Very similar post)
• April Fools' post - Benny's Confession (RANDOM - Very similar post)