Unconventional language hacking tips from Benny the Irish polyglot; travelling the world to learn languages to fluency and beyond!

Category: Language Hacks

Interview #1 with Tim Ferriss: Language Learning

written by Benny Lewis

Today I’m very happy to share an interview I did with New York Times best selling author, Tim Ferriss.

He got his fame initially for writing the 4 hour workweek, followed it up with the 4 hour body, and has just released the third in the series, the 4 hour chef.

The first book was about working well, and he inspired a lot of people to go location independent and start their own businesses after reading it (although I had been travelling for several years already myself when I first read his book), his second book was about living healthily, and to complete his healthy-wealthy-wise series, his final book is about how to learn.

Language:

Reading time: 45 minutes

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The most important skill a traditional learning approach will never teach you (+2 month Arabic video)

written by Benny Lewis

Here it is; my official two month point in Arabic! Subtitles in English, Arabic and Portuguese via Youtube.

I had initially planned to go to the Egyptian consulate in Rio, to finally speak the language for the first time in my life in person, but there were issues in setting up a meeting there. Luckily, I randomly ran into an Egyptian-American, Ahmed, at a Couchsurfing meeting!

I decided to only speak English with him then and ask him if he’d be up for recording a video with me. We still spoke English before recording the video, so he had no idea what my level would have been at. The reason I did this, was so you could literally see the very first time I genuinely spoke the language face-to-face with someone in my life, the moment after I pressed record.

Sharing this key moment is good for tracking my progress, since I know people are curious about such important milestones of the mission, (unlike some friends of mine, I don’t tend to have a camera on my head to catch such moments in cognito!) but obviously breaking into Arabic suddenly, after not speaking it for over a day since my previous Skype session, meant I didn’t have quite the ideal kind of flow I’d like. In future, I’ll speak in the relevant language for several minutes before recording, so I have this flow.

Why focus will get you much more than talent ever will

written by Guest Author

Shortly after I started blogging on Fi3M, I came across another site about learning and improving your ability to learn and made contact with the author. A few months later, Scott Young and I met up while I was passing through Paris briefly. (He’s the one who took that photo of me in front of […]

Language:

Reading time: 8 minutes

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How to speak French like a Quebecker - Le québécois en 10 leçons

How to speak French like a Quebecker – Le québécois en 10 leçons

written by Guest Author

As you all know, I’m a huge fan of Quebec and especially of its French dialect (here’s a video of me in French, interviewing a Quebec girl about the differences) and the wonderful people there. Because I genuinely tried to speak like them while living in Montréal, rather than rigidly sticking to the French I […]

How to Get Free French Classes on YouTube

How to Get Free French Classes on YouTube

written by Benny Lewis

I think the potential of learning online from what most consider something that you must go to classes for, was recently excellently demonstrated by Scott Young, as he successfully learned MIT’s Computer Science four year course in one year without actually going to MIT.

Pulling Back the "Magic" Curtain of Language Hacking

Pulling Back the “Magic” Curtain of Language Hacking

written by Benny Lewis

When I met my first polyglot at age 21, I was floored. It was like looking at a wizard. He jumped into various languages, and could express himself with ease in each language! Unfortunately, this is how most monolinguals look at it. It’s as good as magic.

Language:

Reading time: 8 minutes

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