Unconventional language hacking tips from Benny the Irish polyglot; travelling the world to learn languages to fluency and beyond!
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 blog (with a cool video intro!) on Monday! That’s also the day I’m beginning the project, and even […]
Now, I knew everyone wouldn’t want it to say “Cunning Linguist”!! That’s just too cheeky for a lot of people (if you don’t get the joke, then say it quickly and you’ll notice it sounds like something else…), especially since a linguist isn’t the same as a language lover. Despite this, I have to say that in some places, especially in English speaking countries where people get the joke, I’ve had so many complete strangers come up to me and compliment me on the hilarious play on words.
But since that may be too risqué for many, I made sure that the options “Language Lover” (generally more understandable) and “Polyglot” (more specific and accurate, even if a less known word in English.. for the moment 😉 ) were available instead, also in the same dialogue world bubble.
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 🙂
Next week, I’ll announce my next huge 3 month project in the email list (sign up on the top-right of the site to find out before I announce it on the blog or elsewhere), and you’ll see plenty of language learning updates as I start from scratch, share my struggling progress, and hopefully reach my […]
Those of you who know my story from TEDx talks or blog revelations, will remember that ten years ago I had graduated university in engineering and moved to Valencia Spain, and after six months of the English-speaking-expat lifestyle changed my ways and started my first language learning project of Spanish and then things really took […]
Hey everyone! I’m back after a summer away and my batteries are recharged for the next huge 3-month-to-fluency language project, that I’ll announce soon to those of you in the LHL email list (sign up on the top right to find out!) I had a fantastic time, and will tell you how it went next […]
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.
In continuing the summer series of guest posts, today’s is from Emily, who blogs over at The Babel Times. Her interesting suggestion is about how she learned German from children while living in Switzerland! People often complain that you feel like you are being judged when with adults, and while this is simply not the […]
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