Quick reminder: To get frequent updates about my day-to-day progress and thoughts on learning Mandarin and life in Taiwan, make sure to like my Facebook page, or follow me on twitter or Google plus!

Today’s edition of the Irish times has printed an article about my language learning adventures, and I’ve had some requests for radio interviews on Irish stations this week. While I’m glad to usually write to an international audience, it’s great to see some interest sparked back home! So, welcome to new readers from Ireland!

If you’re wondering about a precise explanation regarding how I learn languages, and some encouragement to make it clear that it has nothing to do with natural talent, the best thing you can do is check out my TEDx talk (17 minutes long).

If you are more curious about how I’ve been travelling for so long, just keep in mind that travel is way cheaper than what you think it is! I’ve had dozens of different jobs to fund this, but at the moment earn from sales of the Speak From Day One package I created that some readers of this blog decide to get (on the link you’ll see a fun video of me speaking my best languages). You don’t have to pay me money to progress in a language though – there are so many ways to learn a language without spending a cent.

Also, for articles more relevant to Ireland, one of the most popular posts I’ve written with almost a million reads has been How to speak English like the Irish, and I’ve also written specifically about learning Irish (Gaeilge), and made a silly video about it. And the book I wrote has been translated to Irish (as well as 21 other languages) by two native speakers from the Gaeltacht and you can see the sales page written entirely in Irish here: Treoir Teanga. Last time I was home I recorded some footage of the Fleadh, since it was in my hometown Cavan!

The biggest article on the site by far has been the 29 life lessons learned in travelling the world for 8 years straight.

About every 3 months, I move to a new country and try to learn a new language. I don’t promise or claim anything, but I do aim very high and share my progress. At the moment I’m trying to learn Mandarin Chinese to a fluent level in just 3 months. It’s pushing me to my limits and I’m working really hard, but sharing my successes and struggles on the blog. So I hope you’ll subscribe by clicking the RSS button, joining the email list (both around the top right of the site) or liking the Facebook page!

And most importantly, I hope something on this site will inspire you to give a second language a try yourself – especially considering that my background may not be so different to yours (I did pass Irish for the Leaving Cert and only got a C2 [For non Irish readers, this is half way between a C+ and a C-] in my Leaving Cert German exam, which ironically is the same name (C2) used to describe the highest level exam you can take in the advanced diploma in German that I sat after trying a second time, with just 3 months to prepare!)

In Cavan, we have a weekly meetup on Wednesdays in the Farnham hotel for Irish speakers to practice their level – check out your local library/paper to see if there is something similar near you to speak a wee bit as Gaeilge, and if you live in a bigger city, say hi to a tourist, or do a search on social networking sites to find a native of many other languages to speak with in person.

If you are going abroad soon and are serious about learning the language, don’t make the mistake that I made for the first six months I was living in Spain, and speak the language immediately! Make mistakes, the world won’t end – extensive research that I’ve done over 8 years has confirmed this!

Thanks for reading and feel free to leave me a comment below, or to join the very active forums on this site to get advice to any specific questions you may have! All the best from Taiwan!
Similar Posts:

• Happy Paddy’s day!
• Benny’s birthday request: 1982 clicks!
• Irish & Czech added to Language Hacking Guide
• Resources for language learning, travelling, blogging and new site design!
• Social media Saturday – What happens in Vegas… gets blogged and tweeted!

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Welcome to new Irish readers! is a post from: Fluent in 3 months. Click through to the site to subscribe to the Language Hacking League weekly e-mail list (on the top right) for way more tips sent directly to your inbox!
If you liked this post, you'll love the Language Hacking Guide! Click here to see a video I made in 8 languages to introduce it!
As a subscriber you get a bonus sneak peak at the Language Hacking Guide! Download it here (zip)!

My flight is about to leave for my new home for the next 3 months (announced here on the blog on Wednesday), so I’ll make this quick

I have just released a brand new video series called Speak from Day 1. I will be packaging it with new purchases of the Language Hacking Guide from Thursday 12:00EST, and increasing the price of the overall package from the current price of the Language Hacking Guide. So the best time to buy is now before that price increase. Also, from Thursday you will no longer be able to buy the Language Hacking Guide by itself.

For full details of what’s included, click this link and check out the tabs at the top that expand on the price options and what you get if you buy it:

Speak from day 1 video course

I receive many emails from people who say that they are considering getting the Language Hacking Guide some day. Well, as a friend of mine always says “There are 7 days in a week, and some day is not one of them” . Also, I imagine many of you have a New Year’s Resolution to perhaps finally get a hold of your language and really speak it! So if you’d like to get it, right now is the time to access a combination of my Language Hacking Guide and new Speak from Day 1 video course, before the price goes up!

It’s also an excellent opportunity to get a cheaper series of just the brand new Speak from Day 1 course. Right now there are not so many videos, so I’m offering it for a lower price. Soon I will be adding much more (just as I kept adding to the Language Hacking Guide, which now has 23 native-written translations) and you will get all updates for free even as the price of the package increases for new buyers.

And to make it even better, I’ve also updated the Language Hacking Guide to include a full audio book! I read the entire book (English version) aloud myself and recorded 42 MP3 files, as I know many people prefer to absorb the contents of books from their MP3 players if they can. This addition is a completely free update to all those who already purchased the Language Hacking Guide (sending the email later today). Current owners of the guide also get an interesting discount on the new Speak from Day 1 course, so wait for that email before you buy if you already have it!

Thanks and I’ll see you soon from another new country
Similar Posts:

• Language Hacking Guide now in 21 languages (Russian & Japanese added)
• Irish & Czech added to Language Hacking Guide
• Fi3M wins the Top 100 Language Lovers competition! Have a look at the other amazing 99 of them!
• Benny’s 2011 music video
• Welcome to new Irish readers!

----------------------------
Speak from Day 1 video course now available (+audiobook of Language Hacking Guide) is a post from: Fluent in 3 months. Click through to the site to subscribe to the Language Hacking League weekly e-mail list (on the top right) for way more tips sent directly to your inbox!
If you liked this post, you'll love the Language Hacking Guide! Click here to see a video I made in 8 languages to introduce it!
As a subscriber you get a bonus sneak peak at the Language Hacking Guide! Download it here (zip)!

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!
Similar Posts:

• Fi3M wins the Top 100 Language Lovers competition! Have a look at the other amazing 99 of them!
• Happy holidays and best posts of the year
• Language Hacking Guide now in 21 languages (Russian & Japanese added)
• Results of survey and planned changes to the blog
• Benny’s 2010: A video summary (& singing in Spanish)

----------------------------
Best Fi3M posts of 2011 is a post from: Fluent in 3 months. Click through to the site to subscribe to the Language Hacking League weekly e-mail list (on the top right) for way more tips sent directly to your inbox!
If you liked this post, you'll love the Language Hacking Guide! Click here to see a video I made in 8 languages to introduce it!
As a subscriber you get a bonus sneak peak at the Language Hacking Guide! Download it here (zip)!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=amdIY8DR_wY

And… that’s a wrap for 2011! It’s been a fun and very hectic year! I’ve been in so many places and met so many people, so I wanted to give you an idea of how the whole year went over just 4 minutes! This video collects some fun video clips and photos from each country.

To make it even more fun, I decided (as always) to sing the background music to it! My family assures me (in true Irish bluntness) that I sound terrible and I should tell everyone to press mute before they press play… but I’m sure you are well used to my bad singing at this stage! I took the same tune that has been used in 3 languages (Kaoma – Lambada, J-Lo – Get on the Floor and the older original they were based on: “llorando se fue”) and mixed them together, since I think the combination portrays the beachy, active and then Andes theme of the video!

In 2012 I’m really looking forward to travelling a little slower, and especially focusing on three-month stays (as well as a few short visits elsewhere), and making deeper connections in each place… and of course reaching higher levels of language proficiency during my missions thanks to the extra time.

The one I start next week is going to be big!

Now that I’ve had my nice little break back home, after partying New Year’s with some Esperanto speakers in Gdansk (Poland), on January 2nd I fly to my next destination! Here on the blog that day I’ll finally share the speak-from-day-one video course I’ve been working so hard on, with a separate fun update to the Language Hacking Guide, and then two days later I’ll have a video update on location to introduce the next mission!

And of course, those in the email list will find out first on Monday morning where it is I’m actually going, and what the mission language will be. You can also follow me on twitter and Facebook and Google+ to see where I’m going announced as I’m travelling.

Any thoughts on the year, these clips or on how terribly I’m singing? Let me know in the comments below!
Similar Posts:

• Benny’s 2010: A video summary (& singing in Spanish)
• Speak from Day 1 video course now available (+audiobook of Language Hacking Guide)
• Happy holidays and best posts of the year
• Best Fi3M posts of 2011
• April Fools’ post – Benny’s Confession

----------------------------
Benny’s 2011 music video is a post from: Fluent in 3 months. Click through to the site to subscribe to the Language Hacking League weekly e-mail list (on the top right) for way more tips sent directly to your inbox!
If you liked this post, you'll love the Language Hacking Guide! Click here to see a video I made in 8 languages to introduce it!
As a subscriber you get a bonus sneak peak at the Language Hacking Guide! Download it here (zip)!

Other than for Burning Man, and to generally travel and get to know new cities, I’m mostly in the US to speak at conferences like TEDx and Blogworld over the next month, as well as to attend other ones, so when I saw the official 45th Star Trek convention opportunity between it all, I knew I had to jump on it!

I would definitely consider myself a “trekkie” – I saw every episode of every series from The Next Generation on, and went back more recently to catch up on the Original series and movies. While nowadays I don’t watch TV any more, I grew up with Star Trek! Sometimes I feel like most of my moral values are based on what I learned in those episodes! But the thought of attending a convention had never crossed my mind.

You will constantly hear references to the Star Trek Convention in TV shows and jokes, so my curiosity had been piqued and I genuinely wanted to see what it was like for myself! Is it all just a bunch of geeks debating which episode was best, or is there more to it?

I had a great weekend, but as you’ll see in the summary of it, I doubt I’ll be going to one again. Lots of people were curious about how it went, so I’ll share it with you here!

Klingon to get in the mood, but not so much at the convention

As you’ll have seen, I’ve been preparing to speak Klingon and managed to learn enough to give a tour of my apartment in the language. It only seemed appropriate to learn at least a little of the language when I came all the way to Chicago for a whole month around this convention (and to get to know this city).

However, as explained in that previous post, it turns out the convention isn’t actually a good place to speak the language. There are lots of people who speak high level Klingon, but it turns out that many of them wouldn’t ever go to an official Star Trek convention for the commercial and impersonal reasons I give below. So what I learned to understand and say what I did in the video will have to do for now! Even those dressed up as Klingons that I met confirmed that they only knew a couple of phrases only.

Having said that, the preparation really got me in the mood for this convention! Especially in reviewing old episodes.

But to be honest, I think this will be my only ever “official” Star Trek convention, although I’d love to go to more sci-fi gatherings if I ever get the chance!

I’d actually go to a fan organised event if I had the opportunity, but I found this one to be terribly commercial, impersonal and very poorly organised at times, despite the company (Creation) having almost half a century of experience and a Scrooge-McDuck’s load of cash from us fans attending to run it. But on the other hand, I met some really cool people, got to hear some incredible stories directly from the actors themselves and of course saw some really well costumed aliens! So it was quite the mixture!

Walking around with all your favourite aliens

The lengths the fans went to, to recreate their favourite characters, were very impressive! Many of the costumes were hand-made and had meticulous detail and devotion to the original. This was all the fans’ own work, not the event’s.

Many of these were so good that there would be lines forming to ask to take photos with them!

After seeing other people dressed up really well as Klingons, I decided to leave my cheap e-bay costume in the car! Although I did make a quick diversion on the way to the convention on Saturday morning, to crash a Financial Blogger Conference in costume and yell at the speaker in Klingon, at his request!

When you are surrounded by Klingons and Vulcans and Andorians and Romulans and people in Star Fleet uniforms from every single series, then you feel like you are really at a Star Trek convention! As expected, everyone was really friendly (even if a few were a bit shy), and it was easy to approach them all.

But, of course, the main reason a lot of people came were to meet the actors – especially Leonard Nimoy, as it was his last ever appearance at a convention.

Hearing the actors’ stories

Apart from with Mr. Nimoy (who you were pushed away from, after the most expensive three seconds of your life to stand beside him for a photo) I found it easy to meet and greet many of the actors. Dominic Keating, who plays Lt. Reed in the latest series, heard my accent during an autograph session and told me with pride about how his family comes from Ireland.

And I simply walked up to Brent Spiner (who plays Data) in the hall and had a quick chat with him. I felt a bit bad for him when a fan was hiding the fact that she was trying to record a video of him making small talk – it would have been much more memorable for her if she just talked to him herself.

But the actors had their time to shine on stage – and each of them gave us a great performance! Brent and Jonathan Frakes (who plays Riker) were absolutely hilarious as a duo on stage! They turned each serious question into a well timed joke, so people got the idea and started asking funny questions themselves. As you can imagine, hearing “what’s your favourite episode” for the four thousandth time would get tedious.

It was fun to see the two of them so happy and enjoying themselves, especially since you wouldn’t expect it from the sombre/serious characters they play. You really get to see the person behind the fictional character. But Jonathan did indulge us by yelling “Shields up, red alert!” Somehow I doubt those two will stop going to conventions for a while!

My favourite one by far though was Nichelle Nichols (who plays Ohura), who shared the tear-jerking story about how she was considering quitting after the first series because of some hassle she was getting for being a female black actress in those times, but was approached by Martin Luther King Jr. himself and encouraged to stay on because of how many people she was inspiring.

All of this put together means that I got most of my money’s worth by going, but there were some things that started to test my patience a lot.

Less magical moments: very commercial and poorly organised

At the end of the weekend it was time for my $75 photo with Leonard Nimoy that you see above.

The only way I could describe that experience would be rushed ASSEMBLY LINE. There were hundreds upon hundreds of us that had paid for the privilege and some clown decided that exactly 50 minutes would be plenty of time for it all so we literally got two or three seconds per person (that’s including walking to in front of the camera) before we were ushered away.

For what I paid I was really hoping for maybe ten (entire) seconds!! You know, shake his hand, tell him I love his work and ask him for a real photo. I wanted him to pose for a mind meld or give me a Vulcan neck pinch with me pretending to faint. Not much time to explain all that when you are paying $25 per second. And then (of course) I had to pay $10 extra for the JPG! We all know how expensive those are to produce from digital cameras.

For me this terrible commercialism was a minor annoyance, since the photo is still great, and I didn’t have anything in particular I wanted to say to him.

But another fan who loves him so much that she paid for the photo and two autographs so that the second could be used as the basis for a tattoo she was going to get, had spent several hundred dollars (that she couldn’t really afford) just on Nimoy and told me that when it was time for her two autographs, she couldn’t even hand him the paper herself! She had to hand it to someone who would hand it on to him. He didn’t have time to look her in the eye or let her say anything. And the privilege of two “in person” autographs costed her $150!! That’s as well as the photo+JPG price.

This is not Nimoy’s fault – it’s the event organisers’. It’s greedy to charge so much and give so little.

It wasn’t like this with most of the other actors, but there were other problems. In fact, Nichelle was taking her time so much to talk to everyone that after waiting for three hours to get my autograph, just before it was my turn she had to give up out of exhaustion. And I was actually very far ahead in the line with my priority ticket!!

Finally, I had paid another $75 for a duo shot with Brent and Jonathan (which I wanted more because I was more of a Next Generation fan than an Original series one)… but I never got it because I arrived an entire ten minutes after they started. The assembly line had closed already by then of course. You can guess what my chances are of getting that money back!!

Creation, who always organise it, did quite a bad job in helping to organise the timing of all of these. All the waiting to not see Nichelle and all the rushing with Nimoy and especially hearing my new friend’s disappointed account of her only chance to meet her lifelong hero, all left a bitter taste in my mouth.

Giving in to my inner trekkie

To be honest, a lot of the stuff organised for us between celebrity Q&As was pretty dull, like poetry readings – or they were showing videos we can just watch on Youtube ourselves. I almost wonder if this was intentional, so that you would wander out into the hall and browse the many stalls selling you crap you can buy off ebay for half the price, reminding you that the point of the whole event is to relieve fans of their money.

I was really hoping for something more sci-fi-like. You know – debates about the ethics of the temporal prime directive, discussions like what did Q really want, and so on. But apart from some dull moments, I can see now that it really is more about sharing the actors’ experiences with people.

The Star Trek convention is a way for fans to come and appreciate the actors’ stories, and to catch up and see how they are doing in real life. And in that sense I did find it very interesting indeed. And I also made a few new good friends that I share something in common with that has been a big part of my life!

And once I decided to just accept the commercial aspect of it, I remembered that my family had given me about $200 spending money at this convention as a birthday present, and I had immense fun using it during the charity auctions!

I bid on several interesting items, that eventually went beyond my budget and I had to give up. But at the very end, I saw this! The cast of The Next Generation! My original favourite!

All (but Dr. Crusher) had autographed it! I bid until we reached my $200 limit (retail price is $500 apparently) and I won! As you can see, I’m very happy with it!

So, all in all, a great experience! I’m really glad I went, but I probably won’t be going back to an official convention again. The last weeks of reliving the old episodes and sharing the memories with other trekkies over the weekend has been wonderful, but it’s time to get back to the 21st century for the moment!

Any thoughts on my experience at the convention? Let us know in the comments!
Similar Posts:

• Speak from Day 1 video course now available (+audiobook of Language Hacking Guide)
• Fi3M wins the Top 100 Language Lovers competition! Have a look at the other amazing 99 of them!
• Benny’s 2010: A video summary (& singing in Spanish)
• Benny’s 2011 music video
• Happy Paddy’s day!

----------------------------
What’s it like to attend a Star Trek Convention? is a post from: Fluent in 3 months. Click through to the site to subscribe to the Language Hacking League weekly e-mail list (on the top right) for way more tips sent directly to your inbox!
If you liked this post, you'll love the Language Hacking Guide! Click here to see a video I made in 8 languages to introduce it!
As a subscriber you get a bonus sneak peak at the Language Hacking Guide! Download it here (zip)!

This is something that has been bothering me for some time, so after giving my thoughts on it, I’d love to hear yours.

What do you understand it as meaning if someone says that they are a “linguist”?

As far as I’m concerned, a linguist is someone who studies linguistics.

Linguistics can be a fascinating field that covers anything from phonetics of dead languages to the origin of languages, how languages evolve with time, deconstructing dialects, how languages affect how we think, computer programming and speech recognition, etymologies, syntax, comparative grammar, neurology, psychology, to much much more.

Languages are a part of humanity and the study of these languages is an important aspect of science itself. Some of the research may be immediately practical and some may be mostly for the purposes of expanding our understanding of the world and our place in it.

I hope this description fits, so correct me if I’m wrong because I’m not a linguist. I have a degree in electronic engineering (and apply engineering mentality to language learning).

For many people ‘linguist’ is a synonym of polyglot – someone who speaks multiple languages (or occasionally a lexiphile - someone who loves words). I fundamentally disagree with this and the use of the word in this context feels terribly wrong to me. The only reason I feel this happens so widely is because polyglot is (as yet) not such a common word in English, so we’ll use the closest thing we’ve got.

Luckily this is changing – one minor victory I can claim is that a lot of people are at least starting to use it after coming across this blog! You’ll notice I like to refer to myself as Benny the Irish polyglot and certainly not Benny the Irish linguist (unless I’m joking).

To me linguist is analogous with scientist, the -ist being “one who studies”. But to others, it’s analogous with capitalist, optimist and other words that just describe someone who has something to do with the base word. Dictionaries, which define what the masses understand in word meanings confirm by saying it’s a Person skilled in foreign languages.

Non-polyglot linguists

I have made it clear that some linguists really piss me off in spreading discouraging and false claims about language learning, from not following the scientific approach and instead extrapolating data in inefficient and limiting contexts (especially when that data disagrees with so many people disproving it). The problem is that many linguists (people with academic and professional experience in studying and working with languages and linguistics) do not speak foreign languages so when they talk about second language learning they are looking at impersonal data with no personal experience.

There’s nothing wrong with that, but when you start making questionable claims then this is something I really have to stand up against.

A reader once said that a (second language acquisition) linguist vs a polyglot is alike a sports journalist vs an athlete. One will have access to all the facts, and research and studied the history of the sport, and will have a doctorate and will nitpick every single move the player makes in the slow motion replay. But at the end of the day, you will always ask the athlete to train you and not the journalist if you want to become an athlete yourself.

Experience is way more important for giving relevant advice.

But actually, the vast majority of linguists don’t even discuss or research second language acquisition – I’ve hung out with linguists many times and really enjoy their company. Forgetting about my language learning missions, I have a lot in common with them from purely enjoying the pursuit of new and interesting knowledge.

Non-linguist polyglots

But I won’t delude myself into thinking that I’m on the same level of linguists when it comes to understanding how languages and linguistics work.

Most polyglots I’ve met (and there are a lot - over half of the population of the entire planet speaks more than one language! Make sure to think outside of the anglophone world when wondering how amazing it is to speak a second language) don’t know what grammatical terminology means, or understand terms like “Indo European”, or would know whether some word they use comes from Greek or Latin.

I know a little of that stuff, but I’m not a linguist. It would be misleading of me to say I’m one. Despite what I’ve said above about experience, some people really do value a PhD more.

And this is why I get equally annoyed by polyglots who call themselves linguists. Because of the ambiguity involved in the word, a lot of people may think that they do indeed have university credentials and put more weight on their advice because of it. I’ll always make it clear on this blog that what I have to say comes from experience and speaking to many many language learners, and not from large scale and well budgetted research.

I feel like I have to protect the word linguist for the linguists’ sake. I’d be equally annoyed by someone wrongly claiming to be an engineer (since I’ve been out of the game so long, I wouldn’t even claim to be one myself any more). You can’t say you’re a scientist just by wearing a labcoat, and you can’t say you’re a linguist just because you speak multiple languages. A polyglot is no more a linguist than he is an astronaut.

You can of course be both a linguist and a polyglot, but one does not lead to the other in both cases.

——-

So what do you think? Am I alone in thinking I should correct people when they call me a linguist? Should second language acquisition linguists swallow their pride and ask for advice from people with experience even if they have no diplomas on their wall? Should polyglots stop pretending to be linguists? Should people stop using one word to cover everything to do with languages and be more specific? Or am I making a mountain out of a molehill?

Let me  know in the comments!
Similar Posts:

• April Fools’ post – Benny’s Confession
• Girls vs guys and the dancing-monkey reason to learn a language
• Friday fun: Learning Na’vi for your Avatar
• Welcome to new Irish readers!
• Best Fi3M posts of 2011

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Ask the readers: What is a linguist? is a post from: Fluent in 3 months. Click through to the site to subscribe to the Language Hacking League weekly e-mail list (on the top right) for way more tips sent directly to your inbox!
If you liked this post, you'll love the Language Hacking Guide! Click here to see a video I made in 8 languages to introduce it!
As a subscriber you get a bonus sneak peak at the Language Hacking Guide! Download it here (zip)!

Photo by Menelaos Prokos

Just over a month ago I wrote an article around my 29th birthday, which almost 300,000 people have read already. I said many things in that post, but one of them was that I would be making a delayed birthday request in August. Well, here it is!

Basically, what I would really like to do is to speak in front of large audiences to encourage them to learn languages, and I’d like to do this one or several times before I turn 30. If you give me about two minutes of your time then you can help me make this happen, and it won’t cost you a penny!

How to vote for my entry in SxSW 2012

Go here to the page with info about my talk, create an account (click the link in the top and follow the steps) and then click the thumbs up (just once)!

That’s it

Extra step if you’re feeling really generous: Tell your friends to vote too! Share this post on Facebook by clicking here. When you click, a new window opens on Facebook and the link to this page is copied to your clipboard. Right click and paste the link into your status and share it with your friends! Alternatively, click the “like” button on the left

Speaking at South by Southwest

There is something much more powerful about getting the message across in person on a stage compared to doing it on a blog, and I’d like to do it more frequently! So far I’ve only done this once and spoken at TBEX in Vancouver, but even then the results of people applying my advice were much more evident.

Next time when I’m better prepared (most of that talk involved winging it on something I vaguely threw together the night before) it’ll be even better! A lot of people were very surprised to hear it was my first time speaking publicly, so you can imagine how much better I’ll do now that I have some experience!

I’ve also said that some day I’d like to speak at a TED(x) event to undo damage that previous TED speakers have done of discouraging adult language learners, by giving practical language hacking tips that anyone can apply, as well as some well-needed encouragement to the masses. But to speak at that I’d presumably need a decent speaking CV/resume and just once won’t do at all!

So I’m aiming high and applied to speak at the incredibly popular South by Southwest event in Austin next March. I was there for a whole month this year to learn American Sign Language around the event and you can see me holding my altered badge from the event in the photo above (being a pirate really got people’s attention!)

If I get in, I’ll take a break from (or wrap up) my first language mission next year to attend, give my talk on “Rapid Language Hacking” to hopefully inspire a very large group of monolinguals, and then hit the non-English road again! If you’d like to help me do that, as part of my birthday request, just follow the link above and vote!

Nothing more involved. It should take just two minutes and won’t cost you a penny, but I would be every so grateful if you did it!

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Over 3800 people have applied to speak at SxSW 2012, the vast majority of whom would also have something interesting to talk about, and they only have 500 slots open! 500 is a lot because it’s a huge event, but competition will be stiff! About 30% of the vote is public, and they encourage people to use their blog or other audiences as I’m doing. If I get in, I’ll be sure to let you all know!

I really appreciate your vote – how many birthday requests are totally free and so easy?

Thanks so much!
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• Benny’s birthday request: 1982 clicks!
• Social media Saturday – What happens in Vegas… gets blogged and tweeted!
• Results of survey and planned changes to the blog
• Welcome to new Irish readers!
• Benny’s 2010: A video summary (& singing in Spanish)

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Benny’s birthday request: 2 minutes & a click to help me speak at SxSW is a post from: Fluent in 3 months. Click through to the site to subscribe to the Language Hacking League weekly e-mail list (on the top right) for way more tips sent directly to your inbox!
If you liked this post, you'll love the Language Hacking Guide! Click here to see a video I made in 8 languages to introduce it!
As a subscriber you get a bonus sneak peak at the Language Hacking Guide! Download it here (zip)!

Check out this video interview I had over the weekend on Seven Network‘s Weekend Sunrise program, which is one of the most popular weekend shows viewed across Australia. If you’re a new subscriber from Australia, welcome!

It was my first time ever interviewed live on TV (and my second time ever interviewed on TV in general, the first time being in French for Quebec television, talking about Couchsurfing).

[Note: They use a strange flash-heavy video hosting system, so you might have to try it in a different browser for it to work. I can't see it on Firefox (in Linux), but can in Chrome. I'm hoping they'll send me the original video so I can upload it to Youtube some time. If you can't see it here, then try this link instead. Sorry about the cheesy 30 second advertisement.]

Behind the scenes

After some email exchanges during the week, I was called into a TV studio here in Istanbul, and set up with audio and a microphone in front of a camera for live satellite transmission with Andrew O’Keefe and Samantha Armytage in Sydney. It was just after 8:30AM in Sydney, and 1:30AM in Istanbul.

Unfortunately I couldn’t see anything myself (they couldn’t give me a live feed of Seven Network in that studio), so I’m just staring into a camera and trying hard to hear the questions without talking over the hosts despite the time delay (you’ll notice I didn’t even hear the last question about saying goodbye in Turkish).

What I found quite ironic is that the view you see behind me is not far at all from my apartment, but I had to get a taxi 20km away from it to the studio (right by the international airport) and sit in front of an HDTV with a looped recording. (If you watch anyone sitting down on TV news with a nice view behind them, always be sceptical that they are sitting in front of a window!!) Far from being anywhere beautiful I’m in a dull building filled with cubicles

As you can see, the interview went well even though it was my first time doing anything like this! I was a bit nervous, but remembered my number one rule for such situations and went with the flow. I like how they re-edited my Language Hacking Guide video!

I thought being interviewed on TV in front of such a big audience would involve lots of preping (telling me not to curse, explaining how I should answer questions etc.) but they must have presumed I did this before, since I just had a quick hello with the hosts when the audio was working before hearing the news and weather leading up to my interview. The questions were good, and I think I did an OK job despite the very tight timeslot.

The linear nature of TV is another reason I don’t watch it any more, and I can’t quite say much in four minutes. Online there are no such limits – you can always click for more information, or podcasts and Youtube videos are only limited by the audience’s patience since a 1 hour one and a 5 minute one usually cost the same to produce. Despite that, I think I got my basic message across!

I found Andrew’s replies funny as well as confusing, and he misleadingly said that I say I claim I can help anyone “master” a language in less than 3 months. His linguistic factoid is also not something I’d imagine many academics would agree with. I just nodded politely rather than try and argue.

Hopefully this is the first of many such appearances! Let me know what you think about it in the comments
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• What’s it like to attend a Star Trek Convention?
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• Benny’s birthday request: 1982 clicks!
• Happy Paddy’s day!

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Live interview on national Australian TV: Weekend sunrise is a post from: Fluent in 3 months. Click through to the site to subscribe to the Language Hacking League weekly e-mail list (on the top right) for way more tips sent directly to your inbox!
If you liked this post, you'll love the Language Hacking Guide! Click here to see a video I made in 8 languages to introduce it!
As a subscriber you get a bonus sneak peak at the Language Hacking Guide! Download it here (zip)!

Hello from the road once again!

I’m writing this from Las Vegas airport en route to Portland for my first of two conference stops in North America. My time in Amsterdam has officially come to an end and I took everything I own in the world (which now weighs precisely 23kg/50lbs; less than the 40+ kgs I had just a year ago, and no, I don’t have a “base” anywhere to dump stuff I might gather with time) with me to move to a new home.

All those in the email list will find out where that is and what language I’ll be learning, on Monday! (I can’t post about it on the blog until I have a silly photo ready to go with the mission of course!)

Everything is going according to plan for me to start learning my fourth language so far this year!

My Dutch experience was fascinating, with some unique challenges and frustrations, as well as pleasant surprises. I’ll be sharing my thoughts about my time there and observations about the Dutch people as I saw them in that brief time, on Tuesday. Then next Thursday I’ll be continuing my series of non-English interviews to share two great videos in the one post, which both include some lovely Amsterdam scenery!

Top Language Lovers competition

Yesterday Fluent in 3 months turned two years old! On June 1st 2009, I wrote my first post on the blog. If I wasn’t busy saying goodbye to some friends of mine, selling my bike and otherwise wrapping up my time in Amsterdam, I would have bought myself a cake to celebrate

Those new to the site, would find it interesting to see what my design looked like initially, before a first redesign and then the recent much more professional one!

Now, on the very same day, I found out something that came as a bit of a surprise to me; after tens of thousands of votes, this site has won FIRST place in the Top 100 Language Lovers competition! Wow!!

Even getting into the top 100 is a great honour, as there were almost a thousand entries!

Thanks so much to everyone who voted and to the Lexiophiles and Babla team for running this great competition once again! I’m speechless! OK… actually, I’m just as talkative as always But still amazed!

Since you already know what I’m about, and may perhaps need some variation to my really long meandering blog posts to see what other language learners (and language professionals) are writing about, I highly recommend you check out the list and see what the top language lovers are in 2011!

Go check them out!

The competition had 4 sub-categories of Best Language Bloggers, Best Twitterers, Best Facebook page and Best Language Professional.

So as well as bloggers, the list includes some great twitterers, who share excellent articles and thoughts every day (conciseness is not my forte, even in twitter most of my rambles are at precisely the character limit!)

Spend some time to go through the list and let me know who your favourites are! You’ll find people I look up to a lot, as well as people I strongly disagree with. It’s important to read about (and perhaps even experiment with) as many different approaches as you can. Almost any method can help you if it’s applied correctly and if it happens to suit your learning style much better.

Of course, I’ll continue to write to encourage people to speak their languages immediately and share how I’m doing it myself, but others in the list of the top 100 discuss more technical aspects of languages better than I ever could.

People always ask me what other language blogs I recommend they read, and I think this top 100 list is definitely an excellent place to start!

Enjoy reading up on the many others for whom languages are a big part of their lives, and let us know what you think in the comments!
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• Best Fi3M posts of 2011
• Videos: Baker, David Walsh & Cody McKibb interview Benny
• Girls vs guys and the dancing-monkey reason to learn a language
• Resources for language learning, travelling, blogging and new site design!
• Social media Saturday – What happens in Vegas… gets blogged and tweeted!

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Fi3M wins the Top 100 Language Lovers competition! Have a look at the other amazing 99 of them! is a post from: Fluent in 3 months. Click through to the site to subscribe to the Language Hacking League weekly e-mail list (on the top right) for way more tips sent directly to your inbox!
If you liked this post, you'll love the Language Hacking Guide! Click here to see a video I made in 8 languages to introduce it!
As a subscriber you get a bonus sneak peak at the Language Hacking Guide! Download it here (zip)!

Next week Fluent in 3 months will turn 2 years old!! To celebrate, major changes are afoot!

Resources: Language learning, travelling and blogging

Before I discuss the new look of the site, I’ll mention some new permanent links I’ve just added to the top: Resources.

There are three links here, so check them out to see me explain what some of my most highly recommended resources are:

Language Learning

This links to the Language Hacking Guide and Why German is Easy products that I have created, since I removed the major links and banners to them that were on the main pages, as part of the new design, as described below.

I also finally mention my favourite books that I have been consistently using in learning different languages. It’s only got a few examples now, so I plan to expand on it with time.

Travel and business

Here I talk about some excellent guides that explain the logistics behind travelling and running an online business. I also share the travel insurance company that I use.

Blogging and earning from it

In less than two years, this site and its readership have grown immensely, and for the last year (exactly) I’ve been able to earn a full-time living from it. Writing interesting and helpful posts is only one reason I can do this.

This page outlines in detail the major steps you should go through, and the resources I highly recommend you invest in, if you are interested in earning money from a blog, or helping a blog to grow quicker.

Completely new design of fluentin3months.com

To better prepare the site for my upcoming speaking gig at TBEX and visit to WDS, I’ve finally implemented a long overdue complete and professional redesign of the entire website. [If you are reading this by RSS or email, check it out!]

And this is only stage one! Even more cool improvements and additions are on the way

I asked the email list what they think should be changed (and what should stay) in my redesign, and because of this, not only have a lot of the visual features changed dramatically, but I’ve added some permanent new pages to the top navigation, as explained above.

Free blog; no advertising on arrival

One part of the change was that the prominence of the Language Hacking Guide has been reduced dramatically; there are no longer banners anywhere on the site’s main page or on typical blog posts, and I even took the links to my products from the top line of links away. This will allow people to see the site on arrival as truly a blog to present free information, judging it based on the quality of the posts presented and not be bombarded with any form of aggressive advertising.

Nearly all of my means of earning money from the website will be restricted to the Resources menu, mentioned above, and occasional links in blog posts when relevant.

Based on the immense traffic this site gets, I could have redesigned it in another way and added pop-up sign-up forms that grey out the entire site on every page, irrelevant Google ads, pressuring count-down timers, fake highlighter pens, and thousands of other things that make the Internet an incredibly annoying place. If I did that, I could make a lot of money with my site’s traffic. For many people, the bottom line is what matters; how much money are you making!

However, at the moment I’m selling one or two copies a day of the Language Hacking Guide, and you know what? That’s all I need to live off. Internet marketers cringe when I tell them how much I’m earning from my blog, but I don’t need a yacht or a rolex. I’d rather sleep with peace of mind, than on a pile of hundred dollar bills.

To give me a small boost I’ll run a special offer soon when I update the guide to 24 languages (Korean, Turkish and Thai added) and if I get a few extra sales that week then it will help me cover my brief trip to North America as well as get me started in my next destination. Apart from that special offer, which will get its own blog post, and future other projects I’ll eventually be working on, I have no interest in pressuring people to pay me money when they arrive on the site.

The majority of the readers of this site use it as a free resource, so I would like for it to be a pleasant reading experience for them. If someone is really enjoying the site, then they will take the time to look through my recommended resources and any clicks on mine or on other products that they end up purchasing (which I earn commission from) will be helping support the site so that I can continue to write free for everyone else.

Site map!

One other request I got a lot was an easy to navigate site map, so I have added that to the top navigation too and you can check it out here. Hopefully it will help you discover some of my coolest posts from the archives!

I’ve also added a reverse-chronological list of missions on the site to date here, and gone even further to list out the majority of my important stops over the entire last decade!

Other changes made

Apart from what I’ve mentioned already, you can see that the new design that Charlie created for me is simply stunning! It’s way nicer to look at, and reflects the personality of the blog much better. The flags stitched to the top, the social media features that float in the left and right as you scroll, the colours, the new logo (people consistently called my old logo the “alien eye”!) – it all gives the site more personality!

I especially like how I myself now have the magic ability to stand across several different frames of the website’s design! I even lean my elbow on the e-mail sign-up form

While other changes are on the way soon, I hope you like the new site design, and I hope you check out the language, travel and blogging resources!

Let me know in the comments below if you have any thoughts on the new design, or if something isn’t working for you (please be specific). Thanks so much
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• Achieving New Year’s Resolutions, my multilingual summer in Barcelona and welcome new readers!

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Resources for language learning, travelling, blogging and new site design! is a post from: Fluent in 3 months. Click through to the site to subscribe to the Language Hacking League weekly e-mail list (on the top right) for way more tips sent directly to your inbox!
If you liked this post, you'll love the Language Hacking Guide! Click here to see a video I made in 8 languages to introduce it!
As a subscriber you get a bonus sneak peak at the Language Hacking Guide! Download it here (zip)!

I don’t like to break the flow of interesting blog posts with too many random asides, so I’ll group several miscellaneous (mostly travel related) things into this one post! At the end I share a cool website that has been really helpful in getting me very affordable flights!

Top 100 Language Lovers/Bloggers

First thing’s first! If you have been enjoying this website then I’d really appreciate if you gave me two entire seconds of your time (presuming you aren’t on dial-up modem speed) to vote for Fluent in 3 months in the “Top 100 Language Lovers” competition in the blogging section.

Just click this image, select “Fluent in 3 months” and submit. That’s it!

The bab.la competition has been a fun one I like to take part in every year. When my blog was just a baby of one month old and I (somehow) got in the top 10 final results, the results page ended up sending me most of my site’s traffic for the first nine months of my site’s existence! Last year I got position one of language blogs and wear the “badge” on my site to show this with pride

I’d be happy with another top 10 this year; if someone else gets the very top spotlight, good for them!

As you’ll see in the list, there are lots of contenders this year! Feel free to look through several of them and see all the other fascinating language lovers out there. I’ll be happy to share the end results with everyone at the end of the month, so you can discover new interesting blogs!

Thanks for your vote!

My 6 week level of Dutch

A major Dutch magazine, Onze Taal is going to feature a detailed interview with me and my thoughts on language learning. However, this being super organised Holland, they interview me in May to publish it in November

Anyway, Femke Hovinga got in touch with me to do the interview and I really enjoyed it! She let me record a part of it so I thought I’d share it with those of you curious about what my level of Dutch is like at the 6 week point!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pufSm8fi76c

It was my first upload with my new camera and I wanted to make sure the whole process simply worked, so I didn’t do much editing. This means there are no subtitles, sorry! Most of what I say is stuff I have said on the blog many times already though, or my thoughts on Dutch culture, which I’ll be writing about soon enough anyway, in much more detail.

This isn’t speaking fluently but it’s a pretty good level that I’m quite happy with considering it has only been six weeks. After about 15 minutes in Dutch, we switched to English so I could explain things for a professional interview more clearly that I could only do in a language I speak fluently.

Speaking gig at TBEX!

The blog, Youtube and meeting people as I travel have been great ways to spread the positive encouraging message that I want to share with the world that anyone can learn and speak a language, and do so in way less than years. But of course, I will always try new ways to reach even more people!

This is why I am so pleased to announce that I will be speaking at my first major conference (although I’ve already been speaking at smaller events) to an audience of many influential people who themselves have a very wide reach (mainly media and other bloggers), and sharing my thoughts on language learning; on June 11th and 12th I’ll be in Vancouver, Canada, at the TBEX conference.

You can see from the timetable that I’ll be quite busy, first discussing some of my blogging strategies on a panel with others (twice!), and then taking the stage for myself to see if I can convert as many monolinguals as possible to what has been titled “polyglottony” (I definitely didn’t come up with that!!)

I can’t wait ’till they give me the mike! As you can imagine, I’m not quite shy to speak in front of many people

By the way, for those of you who would like to talk to me directly, I am always available for one-on-one Skype/telephone calls. Up until now I have been booking only 30 minute sessions, but they tend to end up going up to an hour anyway, so for just today and tomorrow I am letting anyone book the cheaper session before I permanently put the price up! I really enjoy talking to people directly as it helps me focus on issues they are having in particular. So far everyone I’ve talked to has gotten a lot out of our calls (as you’ll see in the testimonials)! I look forward to more

Other upcoming travels: WDS

Normally, I like to keep some suspense around my upcoming travels, but I can share my upcoming non-language-learning-travels over the next month with you right now!

I’ll be starting my next language mission in a new country on June 16th. As always, I’ll announce it in advance to those in the Language Hacking League e-mail newsletter. But until then, here are my upcoming travel plans that are very different to what I usually do!

Normally my travels and local language learning mean I tend to hang out with quite down-to-earth people, but this unique side-trip to let me spend time with some other crazy bloggers couldn’t be missed!

• June 2nd: Flight from Amsterdam to Las Vegas (via Frankfurt). Spending most of the day there waiting for a transfer since it was the cheapest route! If someone in Vegas is free that day, let me know Otherwise, boingo have very kindly given me a year’s free worldwide Internet, so I may just go to one of their many hotspots and do some work before two weeks of many distractions! I was already in Las Vegas last year and may even be back again later this year, so I’ll be likely skipping the strip that afternoon.
• The same day, I fly Las Vegas to Portland, Oregon. I’ll be staying with my great friend Karol Gajda and another friend from my time in Austin, Nick, in a house for a week. We’ll be renting a place while we attend Chris Guillebeau‘s epic World Domination Summit. While the title may be quite confusing for people who don’t read his blog, it’s simply a gathering of people like myself who are all trying to change the world in our own ways! Working together we can likely reach our goals a lot easier.
• June 7th-9th I’ll be making my way by land to Vancouver for TBEX, and hopefully will get a chance to get to know Seattle en route!
• June 10th-15th in Vancouver. Since I’ll be speaking at the conference, a hotel has been arranged for me for the weekend. Then I’ll likely be staying with another great friend, Scott Young after the weekend. Since my only time in Canada up to now was actually in Quebec, I look forward to seeing this other side to the country!
• June 15th; leave the Americas for my next destination and arrive the next day.

I’ll be happy to meet up with readers on Monday 6th in Portland and 13th in Vancouver. And possibly 8th in Seattle. Write to me if you’ll be in these cities and if enough people are interested, I’ll arrange Fi3M meet-ups!

Travelling cheap

When you look at this itinerary, you might think that “popping” to North America for two weeks might be horribly expensive. Actually such trips can be much less expensive when you do it in a particular way:

For flights I highly recommend using the website www.skyscanner.net. This is always my go-to website for finding the cheapest flight. It is especially effective for finding the most affordable European flights, but has recently been doing great for me for intercontinental flights too!

The one website searches a huge list of other sites directly and presents you with the cheapest route and date if you can be flexible about when to fly. Flying one day earlier or later may mean hundreds of dollars in difference. This site also searches Expedia within it, which tends to have many cheap flights anyway. What I really like is that it presents the data to you visually so you can see immediately what day of the month is cheaper.

But one tip not so many people are aware of is that different Expedia sites give different prices. The country you have set in Skyscanner transfers to Expedia. When I had it set as U.S. my cheapest flight leaving Vancouver to my secret destination for my travel date range was $1,500!! Terrible! I got the same price when I searched on the American Expedia site directly.

But when I set my country (i.e. for the website, language, currency etc.) to the Netherlands, this changed down to an incredible $420! I checked to see if it was the same in other countries, and the same flight-route and price was presented with U.K. as the country too. If you don’t mind paying in pounds, you can have the interface in English via the UK site if the US site is giving a higher price.

My flight to Portland (via Frankfurt and Las Vegas) was actually only $340. I don’t have any frequent-flyer-mile tricks (travel hacking info I see online only ever seems relevant to North Americans), and I don’t tend to be on-the-ball for some time-sensitive promotion. I just use Skyscanner and I end up paying affordable prices for hops across oceans.

Even more impressive is that my flight from Cali Colombia to Dublin Ireland (a route that you would expect to be incredibly difficult to find a good rate for) was €320 a few days before Christmas!! This was actually for 3 entire flights: Cali-Bogotá, Bogotá-Madrid, Madrid-Dublin. I bought it on Iberia’s website, but found the flight and price on Skyscanner. I checked in my bags in Cali and didn’t have to worry about them until Dublin and had an excellent flight; not bad for what I paid!

For accommodation, rather than look at hotels, or even hostels, if you are travelling with other people then renting a vacation apartment actually turns out to be quite affordable, depending on when and where you go. This is what I’m doing in Portland, but otherwise using Couchsurfing means you are saving incredible amounts of money, while also having someone local to give you tips on the best and cheapest places to eat and how to get around in general. For longer stays I simply use the means locals would to find a normal furnished apartment.

I don’t tend to make 2-week trips like this, but you can see that with some careful planning, even moving to the other side of the world does not have to break the bank! The exposure of speaking at TBEX will definitely be worth my investment in the long run.

The entire 2 weeks will probably end up costing me a bit more than $1000 including my flights and all other expenses (which is not far from how much many people pay for rent/mortgage, fuel, car insurance, food, smoking, alcohol etc. in a half a month). Luckily my normal living expenses, even during travel periods, are actually way less than this. So no, you don’t need to be rich to travel.

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So once again, thanks for your vote and I hope you like how I’m doing in Dutch! Also, if you will also be attending WDS or TBEX, let me know in the comments below! Hopefully today’s travel tips made all my other ramblings worth it
Similar Posts:

• Fi3M wins the Top 100 Language Lovers competition! Have a look at the other amazing 99 of them!
• Social media Saturday – What happens in Vegas… gets blogged and tweeted!
• Speak from Day 1 video course now available (+audiobook of Language Hacking Guide)
• Benny’s birthday request: 2 minutes & a click to help me speak at SxSW
• Resources for language learning, travelling, blogging and new site design!

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Travel cheaper with skyscanner, 6 week level of Dutch