How I’m learning Mandarin in 2026: My Daily Routine in Taipei
This is what I'm doing this year to make sure my Mandarin is strong, so I'm better prepared to travel deep through Taiwan
This is what I'm doing this year to make sure my Mandarin is strong, so I'm better prepared to travel deep through Taiwan
One thing I love about this blog is that when people see me struggle as a beginner learner, it reminds them that I’m not in this to present myself as a “guru” or language ninja, but that it’s all about trying to get people to be OK with struggling themselves. If an experienced language learner […]
As you know, earlier this week I started my project to try to reach fluency in Japanese in 3 months! As promised, I am going to be uploading very regular updates of my progress, and when better to do that than by recording my first attempt at a Japanese only video, just three days after […]
While proving that “virtual immersion” is indeed possible, and while I do genuinely hope to inspire language learners over the coming months, no matter what language you are learning, what will be motivating me to keep going on a day to day basis will be the fact that I’m going to travel Japan next year.
As you all know, I am currently in Valencia, my favourite city in the world! I wanted to give myself 2 weeks to settle in before starting my big language project, which I’ll announce here on the blog (with a cool video intro!) on Monday! That’s also the day I’m beginning the project, and even […]
Now, I knew everyone wouldn’t want it to say “Cunning Linguist”!! That’s just too cheeky for a lot of people (if you don’t get the joke, then say it quickly and you’ll notice it sounds like something else…), especially since a linguist isn’t the same as a language lover. Despite this, I have to say that in some places, especially in English speaking countries where people get the joke, I’ve had so many complete strangers come up to me and compliment me on the hilarious play on words.
But since that may be too risqué for many, I made sure that the options “Language Lover” (generally more understandable) and “Polyglot” (more specific and accurate, even if a less known word in English.. for the moment 😉 ) were available instead, also in the same dialogue world bubble.
Today you get two fun videos about my very tiny American accent project! And tons of audio files (scroll down to hear) to show my actual attempts at an American accent 🙂
Next week, I’ll announce my next huge 3 month project in the email list (sign up on the top-right of the site to find out before I announce it on the blog or elsewhere), and you’ll see plenty of language learning updates as I start from scratch, share my struggling progress, and hopefully reach my […]
Those of you who know my story from TEDx talks or blog revelations, will remember that ten years ago I had graduated university in engineering and moved to Valencia Spain, and after six months of the English-speaking-expat lifestyle changed my ways and started my first language learning project of Spanish and then things really took […]
Hey everyone! I’m back after a summer away and my batteries are recharged for the next huge 3-month-to-fluency language project, that I’ll announce soon to those of you in the LHL email list (sign up on the top right to find out!) I had a fantastic time, and will tell you how it went next […]
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