Unconventional language hacking tips from Benny the Irish polyglot; travelling the world to learn languages to fluency and beyond!
From the blog’s origin era (2009–2014), kept as lived proof of the method. See all the missions. Time to give you my update from Japan! I got into Okinawa just over a week ago, and have been settling in, exploring that beautiful island paradise, and have just got into Kyoto, where I’ll be spending the […]
Carlos and Jan used romanisation, tutoring, vocabulary review and regular conversation practice to build their Cantonese speaking skills.
Learn how eating customs differ around the world, from chopsticks and shared dishes to table manners, hosts and respectful travel.
From the mission archive, Benny wraps up two months of Japanese study, reviews his progress and prepares to use the language while travelling.
Christine Gilbert shares how monolingual parents can support a bilingual child through sustained, responsive language use and realistic family goals.
Guest writer Adam shares practical ways for introverts to meet speakers, practise a language and work with their own social energy.
This week, I can finally do what I had wanted to do last week and give you a full example of how my conversations tend to be going, right now a little after my half-way point in the Japanese project!
At this stage, I can handle straightforward question-and-answer exchanges pretty well, but my grammar and vocab still need serious improvement and will continue to be my focus over the next few weeks. I’m also not so confident about explaining a concept for a few minutes, and I did a really poor job of describing what “Couchsurfing” was, especially when my lack of important vocab held me back.
As well as this, my accent and pronunciation need lots of improvement. I’m aware of such issues, but they will definitely take the back seat to higher priorities for now.
Watch a brief snapshot of Benny’s Japanese level during his mission, then see what he planned to practise in longer video updates.
From the mission archive, Benny reviews his first month learning Japanese, the setbacks he met and the changes planned for month two.
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