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

Category: Language Hacks

Nubian history: discussion in Arabic about ethnic group in Egypt

written by Benny Lewis

After leaving Cairo, the first stop on my Egyptian travels was Aswan, the furthest south in the country where you can find a major settled area, and where the Egyptian part of the Nile begins after Lake “Nasser” and the High Dam.

By far, the most interesting part of my time there was discovering things about the ethnic group known as the Nubians, which at one point in history were able to overpower the Pharaohs of Egypt, but have had an unfortunate history of displacement and migration, especially in the last century.

To share that story, I let Gasser M. Anwar, a Nubian working in the tourist industry, take the microphone to share his perspective on it all with us. With subtitles in English and Arabic as always!

5 steps to overcoming your fears and conquering the world

written by Matt Kepnes

Today’s guest post is from my friend Matt Kepnes (aka Nomadic Matt), who wrote here earlier about How to travel the world like Indiana Jones. He has extensive travel experience, and his book How to travel the world on $50 a day has just been published today. If you are in any of these cities, […]

Language:

Reading time: 8 minutes

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Standard Arabic or Local Dialect - Which Should You Learn First?

Standard Arabic or Local Dialect – Which Should You Learn First?

written by Benny Lewis

Probably one of the most frequent comments I’ve received on my videos over the last months, usually from people in Arabic speaking countries that are not Egypt, or from elitist academics, all of whom ignored my travel-in-Egypt focus, has been “You should be learning Modern Standard Arabic (MSA)! It’s much better than dialect!”

Now that I’m actually using what I spent months preparing for, in the country itself, I can confirm that learning a dialect is far superior to learning MSA if you plan to speak the language.

How I learned to speak Arabic while living in Brazil

How I learned to speak Arabic while living in Brazil

written by Benny Lewis

My three months are officially up! From the blog’s origin era (2009–2014) — kept as lived proof of the method. See all the missions. In a few hours I’ll be getting a flight back to Ireland to spend Christmas with my family, then heading to Germany for a few days to celebrate the New Year […]

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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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 […]

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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