“Hacking language learning”: My new and improved TEDx talk that includes the best polyglot videos online. Please share!!

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Please watch this and then copy and paste this link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0x2_kWRB8-A

(or short-link http://youtu.be/0x2_kWRB8-A )

to your Facebook wall, or to Google+, twitter or your other favourite social media source. If you're too busy to watch it now, copy and paste it anyway and then you have an easy place to find it later when you do have time! O:)

I really hope this new and improved TEDx talk will get lots of views, inspire many new language learners and even be considered to be used in the main TED stream to ultimately reach millions!

Even though you may be well aware of my language learning advice, this video shares a new aspect of why I failed at my first attempt to learn Spanish which I have not discussed on the blog yet, and I go through the five most commonly used reasons why adults don't learn languages and explain ways around them. It also includes clips of the most impressive polyglot videos online within the talk!

Background of new talk

A couple of years ago, I gave a TEDx talk in San Antonio, to try encourage language learners. There were a few problems with this though: it was the second time in my entire life on stage, and as such I hesitated a lot and it came across as less professional.

I also made it all up on the spot without any preparation and didn't cover points I had wanted to when I saw my time running out. As well as this, when the video was uploaded, they misspelled my name as Bennie in the unchangeable imprint into the video and the title of the video was the verbose and confusing one of “TEDxSanAntonio – Benny Lewis – Fluent in Three Months – Rapid Language Hacking”.

And finally, the “Tengo la camisa negra” t-shirt was a little distracting. 😛

With all this in mind, and with a few years of speaking experience under my belt, it was time for my second attempt at the TEDx stage, at Warsaw!

I think it worked out a lot better this time! I prepared my talk in advance, so I was much more confident, ran it through a few people for feedback (including a friend of mine, Derek Sivers who is an experienced TED talker), I implemented images and several videos into the talk so that it flows a lot better, and rather than do it alone, those in the videos are actually polyglot cameos (several from the Skype me Maybe music video). Despite all this the video is shorter than the first one!

So do check it out, and let me know what you think of it in the comments below. Please do share it with your friends, because I think it's the most compressed form of intensive language learning encouragement that I have made to date, and what I hope to be among the most encouraging videos for struggling language learners that you'll find online!

Thanks a million! 🙂