Unconventional language hacking tips from Benny the Irish polyglot; travelling the world to learn languages to fluency and beyond!
In years of constantly comparing the many successful vs unsuccessful language learners to see what really makes them different, I can share another huge realisation with you today. Many of the major questions most people start asking themselves in language learning are, in my opinion, things that should be coming much later in the priority […]
Kids are great! I was an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher for several years in several countries, teaching mostly children, and I could see how quick they were at learning a second language. Of course, who of us doesn’t want to go back to our childhood, when things were simpler and the world […]
Words. Who needs them? Of course, if you want a really high academic level in a language then learning vocabulary, by whatever way you do it, will get you there. Most exams will test you on your memory capacity for even some obscure words that you’ll never actually need in real life. And some people […]
Perfectionism is usually thought of as a desirable quality to have. You can’t get better than “the best”, right? Well, in my opinion perfectionism is among the worst possible attributes a person can have if they really want to achieve anything in life. Yes, high standards are important, and yes, if what you do is […]
People know I feel that confidence is an absolutely crucial part of generally improving your life and especially for being able to speak languages well, but it’s been pointed out that I have a somewhat insensitive way of telling people to be more confident. I feel that the slap-in-the-face approach of telling people not to […]
It’s easy to look at someone who already speaks a second language and just think that it comes naturally to them. Perhaps if you see something like the video of me sharing my salsa learning experience in pretty good Spanish, you might think that speaking Spanish was just my destiny. I’m “naturally talented” with languages […]
You see the native speaker of your target language, that girl/boy you like, an important person you admire or you could be moments away from clicking “send” on an important e-mail or job application, or pressing that last digit to make an important phonecall. And then it starts: the self-doubt, the reasons you’ll fail and […]
As an engineer with a scientific background, I am quite sceptical to wild claims, in life, explaining how the universe works, and in language learning. Even in the days of ebooks and smartphones we still apply backward centuries-old thinking to concepts that should have died out long ago. While some would call it closed mindedness, […]
No matter what you’re doing, whether it’s learning a language, trying to become a writer, starting a business etc. it seems like everyone these days has a step-by-step layout about precisely how you can succeed in it. It’s hard to decide which one to follow, especially when some of them conflict with one another. That’s […]
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