Comments on: The stone of Rosetta & multilingual Language Hacking Guide 2.0

By: Benny the language hacker

Benny the language hacker — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 22:34:00 +0000

I wrote another post that I hinted to how I feel about Rosetta Stone here: http://www.fluentin3months.com/best-course/
It’s an excellent name, but the software doesn’t live up to anything nearly as useful.

By: Benny the language hacker

Benny the language hacker — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 00:24:00 +0000

Yes, Lidl and other international product labels are great for helping you learn some vocabulary

By: Goŝka

Goŝka — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 20:25:00 +0000

I use the Rosetta stone method connected with another good method, reading about something you like. I just always read texts on cosmetics packages and as they are translated close, it’s real Rosetta. and that is how I’ve learned a lot of English words connected with beauty and cosmetics, which I would never learn in any course. I’ve even picked up some French and German words in this way, although I don’t speak these languages

By: The Language Hacking Guide - recenzja

The Language Hacking Guide - recenzja — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 12:30:15 +0000

[...] Do LHG dodany jest także plik z podzielonymi na 10 kategorii 98 conversational connectors, bardzo przydatnymi w rozmowie wyrażeniami. Warto zauważyć, że dzięki wielojęzycznej wersji dostajesz za darmo ten plik w wielu językach i od razu możesz się pouczyć przydatnych wyrażeń zamiast szukać ich w Internecie. Wielojęzyczna wersja to także okazja do poćwiczenia swojego nowego języka, a metodę tę opisał Benny w tym wpisie. [...]

By: Kate

Kate — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 23:07:42 +0000

This is really cool, so true! Sorry 4 being picky but the 'BIBLE' is spelt with a capital B. I see you've written the name of your own book with capitals and also the other names and languages you have mentioned. Whether you believe in the Bible or not it is a religious text so should begin with a capital. Even less than that it's the name of a book and should therefore be capitalised. Sorry about my grammar ocd lol but I just had to mention it as you had written everything else correctly! Keep up the good work =)

By: Christopher

Christopher — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 01:55:43 +0000

Yes I agree that native subtitles are even better for this purpose, but alas they are not often available.

By: Crno Srce

Crno Srce — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 23:02:09 +0000

I've been reading your site for a while – I love your advice on throwing yourself into trying the language from day one. The less you know, the less you expect yourself to know. This is more good advice. I recently discovered Assimil courses and the amount you can learn to recognise in written and spoken form, in a short amount of time, proves the point I think. Of course, you need to find (and use!) opportunities to actually speak. It seems obvious that you won't just wake up one day speaking another language just by studying it, but for years that's just what I expected to happen. The technique you describe here is great at making you a reader/listener who understands words – so it's a great adjunct to your other advice.

I read this recently: http://tesl-ej.org/ej45/tesl-ej.ej45.fr1.pdf and I thought that, apart from the focus on reading, the author has a lot in common with you. After reading this new article of yours, I think you two have even more in common!

Keep up the good work, Benny. You're an inspiration

By: Benny the Irish polyglot

Benny the Irish polyglot — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 19:33:37 +0000

Excellent point – his tireless efforts made uncracking Egyptian possible! He was one hell of a language hacker! I certainly hope I'm his reincarnation

By: Benny the Irish polyglot

Benny the Irish polyglot — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 19:32:29 +0000

Excellent! Can't wait to read the case study

By: Benny the Irish polyglot

Benny the Irish polyglot — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 19:32:02 +0000

I can still sing some of the Lion King songs in Spanish
I'll get to your response soon, still have an e-mail backlog due to focusing on the relaunch.

By: Benny the Irish polyglot

Benny the Irish polyglot — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 19:30:56 +0000

Very interesting to hear the extent of how Harry Potter can be used and how it improves in level for each book! Thanks for sharing

By: Benny the Irish polyglot

Benny the Irish polyglot — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 19:20:10 +0000

No idea – I only ever plan the next 4-6 months maximum. I know what the mission after Hungarian will be, but after I return to Ireland for Christmas my 2011 is still completely open. It depends on finances, and my energy and enthusiasm levels I will likely mix some challenging (non European) with one not so challenging (same language family as a language I already know) so that I have a nice balance.

Chinese is definitely on my short list of priorities, but I really can't say when I'll get to it yet! Watch this space

By: Abby

Abby — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 16:06:03 +0000

Everyone keeps talking about Harry Potter! I love Harry Potter and am planning on getting the Arabic version of the books as soon as possible. I am getting them from Egypt, because they cost too much money in the states, so I have to wait about 2 months, but I know them so well, so I am sure that I'll be able to pick up the language in a flash. Of course, there will be words that won't be totally useful in my everyday chatting (wizard, wand, etc.), but the fact that I know the books already will be very useful! Can you tell I'm excited?!

By: Brian Kung

Brian Kung — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 08:34:58 +0000

Japanese has two alphabets…sort of.

As for Chinese, the easiest way is to learn stroke order (how to write characters correctly after looking at them, basically), and then get a tablet and use Chinese character recognition to input them into online dictionaries.

Works wonders.

PS, Benny, when are you going to learn Chinese?

By: Adventurer101

Adventurer101 — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 01:37:03 +0000

Great suggestions Benny! I am currently reading 10-10-10, a book by Suzy Welch in Spanish and English and am trying to balance between just go with the flow of reading and paying attention to the exact wording. Sometimes, I found myself just fly by the words and did not associate the Spanish words with the English, thus not learning new vocabs. Suggestions??

By: lennier61

lennier61 — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 00:33:00 +0000

Benny, you have forgotten to talk about the hero of this story, Jean François Champollion. I am pretty sure he was your previous reincarnation, as he was a language hacker. When he was 3 years old, his mother (english lady) read him the Bible every night, when she went to sleep he (who has memorized the english words) tried to read the Bible alone, and voilà when he was 4 years old he was able of reading English. Es uno de mis heroes personales, cuando viajó con Napoleón ya hablaba Francés, Inglés, Alemán, Latín, Griego, Copto y Arabe.

By: Joshua

Joshua — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 00:27:42 +0000

Another reason that Harry Potter works so well, is that the Harry Potter Books also available as unabridged Audio-Books in many languages.
I heard the english version while reading it in german (my first language), then I did it vice versa, listening to the german version while reading the english version. The really boosts the vocabulary. (And its a real pleasure to listen to Stephen Frey reading the english books)
Now I do the same with spanish. (Shame that only The Philosophers Stone is available as Audio book in spanish. There are generally less Audio books in Spanish than in other languages, anybody here knows the reason?)

By: long live the sharing

long live the sharing — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 23:37:16 +0000

Yo Benny, how's it goin',

here is a link to the "Heinrich Schliemann's Selbstbiographie" (1-25 I. Kindheit und kaufmännische Laufbahn: 1822-1866 is the chapter you want) totally connected to the topic of this post:

http://diglit.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/schli...

Here is a short explanation too, it will motivate you to read those 20-30 pages from the book:

http://www.language-learning-tips.com/17_Schlie...

excerpt:

""In order to acquire quickly the Greek vocabulary," Schliemann wrote, "I procured a modern Greek translation of 'Paul et Virginie' [a French novel; Schliemann already knew French], and read it through, comparing every word with its equivalent in the French original. When I had finished this task I knew at least one half the Greek words the book contained; and after repeating the operation I knew them all, or nearly so, without having lost a single minute by being obliged to use a dictionary. Of the Greek grammar I learned only the declensions and the verbs, and never lost my precious time in studying its rules; for as I saw that boys, after being troubled and tormented for eight years and more in school with the tedious rules of grammar, can nevertheless none of them write a letter in ancient Greek without making hundreds of atrocious blunders, I thought the method pursued by the schoolmasters must be altogether wrong... I learned ancient Greek as I would have learned a living language.""

By: Benny the Irish polyglot

Benny the Irish polyglot — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 20:27:17 +0000

33,000 focal atá i gceist Ní féidir liom íoc, ach beidh 80% coimisiún ann (sin €31 sa leabhair a díol tú). Scríobh chugam if you're interested!

By: Claire Canning

Claire Canning — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 20:21:04 +0000

Hmmm….sounds suimiúil. Cé chomh fada is atá an leabhair seo?