Unconventional language hacking tips from Benny the Irish polyglot; travelling the world to learn languages to fluency and beyond!
Time for a mission update! Last time I updated was after a few days in Manila when I had decided to go down south. I made it to Cebu, and went straight to the very south of that island (around Moalboal) to get some time by the sea (I hadn’t been by the sea for […]
If your end-goal is to speak then having a silent period to prepare (while you study, listen, or brace yourself for the glorious coming of your ready day foretold by language learning prophets) is nothing more than a comfortable way to waste time. It’s amazing how much this is promoted by various methods I see […]
Explanations of foreign body language / gestures is one of the many many things you won’t find in grammar books and typical courses. And it’s something you’ll never pick up from audio based passive learning. The vast majority of non-verbal communication is actually universal – it would just seem strange to list them. But then […]
For most people, the grammar issue is a huge question. So you may be surprised to see I haven’t written many posts about it despite running this blog for over 5 years about languages and related topics. The reason is simple: there is no one-size-fits-all solution. I have my method, and someone else will tell […]
In this day and age travel is so easy and cheap that taking a “gap year” is becoming more and more commonplace. Travel before settling down into your job or even before going to college is something a large number of Europeans and Australians have been doing for well over a decade. I’m glad to […]
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 […]
It’s time for my first update from the Philippines! (No language learning tips in this post 😉 ) Most of what I’ll write here is covered in this video I recorded. Unlike most of my videos, this one isn’t so exciting; just me talking to the camera in bad lighting (and bad quality, due to […]
It’s time for the first language mission of 2011! I am actually hoping to work on four new languages by September, so this is going to be one hell of a year, and I hope you’ll subscribe and read along to get some tips for your own language missions 🙂 So, in a few short […]
Today’s guest post is from surfer-single-traveller Marília who writes at Tripping Mom. Coming from a bilingual family it’s easy for me to see how manageable and beneficial it is to speak two languages at home. My dad would always speak to us in Italian and my mother in Portuguese while we lived in Brazil. Much […]
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