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Articles by:
Benny Lewis


Finding the right accommodation for immersion in a culture

written by Benny Lewis

Hello from Rio de Janeiro!! Since I’m still just settling in (and getting over jetlag), tonight will be the first time that I go out on the town! Obviously the main part of this mission is to get out and meet Cariocas who can help me understand their language and culture a little bit more, […]


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Reading time: 7 minutes

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My next mission: Become Brazilian in 3 months!

written by Benny Lewis

EDIT: This mission was a success! You can read how I spoke Portuguese with no foreign accent, and how I adapted to life in Rio. I also wrote about why I love Brazilians so much :=) After learning 6 languages to fluency in 6 years of travels, and learning to speak Czech in just two […]


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Reading time: 10 minutes

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How to speak a language pretty well, starting from scratch, in just two months

How to speak a language pretty well, starting from scratch, in just two months

written by Benny Lewis

Want to speak Spanish well, speak French well, speak German well, or any language for that matter? If I can do this with Czech starting from zero, imagine what you can do! I’d like to summarise everything I’ve discussed on the site regarding my earliest intensive language experiment. I was initially aiming for fluency in 3 […]


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Reading time: 5 minutes

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Hitting a brick wall in your language progress

written by Benny Lewis

You can call it a brick-wall or a plateau, but if you work on a language long enough you may eventually hit it; a point where you simply aren’t making any progress. This has happened several times for me in the past in other languages, especially after sprinting into it in the initial stages and […]


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Reading time: 8 minutes

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How to become a location-independent freelance translator

How to become a location-independent freelance translator

written by Benny Lewis

In the previous post I explained my background (and need) to become a freelance translator. In this post I will go into more detail about how I got work, what that work involves and why it’s not as easy as you think!! Finding translation work I was in a pretty bad situation a few years […]


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Reading time: 10 minutes

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My background before becoming a location-independent freelance translator

written by Benny Lewis

Unlike most of my posts, this one is not a general “how to” that I think everyone can also follow. It’s my random story of the path I took to get to a great job; for those curious 🙂 This post does not have any useful information about finding work as a translator etc. It […]


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Reading time: 5 minutes

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Do you need to be rich to travel the world?

Do you need to be rich to travel the world?

written by Benny Lewis

A lot of people have been asking me how I fund my language-learning travels – did I win the lottery? Do I have really rich parents that pay for everything? Maybe I donate a lot of plasma, sell property or invest in the stock market? Actually, for many of my travels, I had quite normal jobs […]


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Reading time: 6 minutes

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Summary of month 2: on the final dash to see if I make it to fluency!

written by Benny Lewis

Today’s post is just a summary to keep you updated on my progress in this summer’s experiment 🙂 (No language learning tips today, sorry!!) I have been in Prague for a total of 2 months now, in my experiment to see if it is possible to become fluent in a language starting from scratch in […]


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Reading time: 6 minutes

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Couchsurfing: How to practise with a native without even needing to leave your home

written by Benny Lewis

Edit: This post was so well appreciated by people that I’ve rewritten it and added it to lots of other unconventional tips, in the Language Hacking Guide. I recently shared my most important decision ever that started me on the path to becoming a polyglot, but it lead to a lot of questions that some […]


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Reading time: 10 minutes

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