Unconventional language hacking tips from Benny the Irish polyglot; travelling the world to learn languages to fluency and beyond!
I’m quickly approaching my one month point in Japanese, and can give you some updates on how I’m doing there soon! In the mean time, I got this interesting guest post suggestion from William Peregoy. I’m quickly seeing that the scare tactics used on Japanese learners, like in every other language that I’ve come across, […]
From the blog’s origin era (2009–2014) — kept as lived proof of the method. See all the missions. A little tradition I’ve kept up since starting the blog, is to give you a video tour of almost every place I temporarily call home! For instance, in English I showed you my penthouse in Rio, my […]
In a change from my initial plan to wait a month before uploading conversations, here is my 10-day update in Japanese. From the blog’s origin era (2009–2014) — kept as lived proof of the method. See all the missions. This video is entirely in Japanese, and absolutely and utterly non-scripted (apart from the intro). I […]
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 […]
From the blog’s origin era (2009–2014) — kept as lived proof of the method. See all the missions. 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 […]
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 🙂 From the blog’s origin era (2009–2014) — kept as lived proof of the method. See all the missions.
Hello from Ireland today! After some time with my family, I fly to London for a week (location locked meet-up details right now on the Facebook page), and then I start my next language mission! To find out what that is, make sure you are subscribed to the Language Hacking League email list, by signing […]
The decision I made seven years ago to study Chinese at university changed my life. Right from the beginning I decided that I didn’t just want to learn some Mandarin, I wanted to be proficient. I wanted to speak the language to an advanced level and be able to read a newspaper and write characters with ease. It’s fair to say that I got stuck in immediately, and got completely immersed in my studies!
Seven years later, I can’t say that I’m perfect and don’t make any mistakes, or that I understand and know how to say everything. There’s still a lot of room for me to improve, but I have achieved my original goal. I can speak Mandarin fluently, and I know all the simplified and traditional characters other than the really rare ones. I speak and use Chinese every day, and it has really become a part of my life and a second language to me now.
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