Fluent in 3 Months PREMIUM
FI3M Premium is my multimedia guide to language hacking, and it's the very best material I have to offer. This members-only website includes and expands on my original Language Hacking Guide and Speak from Day One package, with hours of video tutorials, video demonstrations where I show you how to speak from day 1, video and audio interviews with other famous polyglots not available for preview elsewhere, and a massive database of resources designed to help you create virtual immersion at home. Sales of Premium help support me to keep this site alive.
Fluent in 3 Months the book
Get the international best selling book that has all of my best language learning advice in one place! If you already have the book, you can now access FI3M Plus, an add-on (free for book owners) with video previews of interviews quoted in the book, lists of resources, the best links and expanded advice organized by language, chapter or category, and much more.
World's Most Useful Language Learning t-shirt
I've partnered up with Campus Customs to create a customizable t-shirt that allows you to write text in your target language on the back to let the world know what language you are learning, while being a high quality t-shirt and remaining affordable. In using this t-shirt, I have already had random opportunities to practise several languages with people in the street, in totally unexpected places! The front of the t-shirt can say “Cunning Linguist”, “Polyglot” or “Language Lover”, and you'll see me wear this t-shirt in many of my videos! See here for the video intro and a look at the options.
Learning With Texts
The completely free tool for practising reading your target language is included on this site. A full explanation and video tour of how it works is here, or you can type http://lwtfi3m.co to go directly to the sign in / registration screen.
Consultations and Language Coaching
I offer one-on-one consultations about language learning, website strategy, productivity and travel to both individuals and business leaders. If you'd like hire me to speak at your office, coach your staff, or give you a personal consultation, please see my consultation details. Every business should be multilingual to really thrive in a global economy. Incorporating new languages into your business means stretching your reach to new markets, new clients, and strengthening your existing ties abroad.
One-on-one lessons
I don't give these myself, but I do get nearly all my private lessons on italki. Click here to sign up and automatically connect to my profile. You can search for natives of a language for free languages exchanges or affordable private lessons via Skype. See my full review of italki here. All sign ups with this link support this site!
Best blog posts
If you check out the site map you can see a chronological list of all blog posts that I've written, as well as a specific list of each mission that I've blogged about. Otherwise use the Google search tool on the right of this site for a specific topic. Generally, people have specific things holding them back so I took the time to write an incredibly detailed post of the Many reasons why we don't learn languages, and their answers. Each answer links to relevant blog posts that dives into that setback in much more detail.
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My language book recommendations
I get asked all the time which book or course I recommend for some given language. If you search my site for “review of…” you'll see me discuss many famous (and sometimes expensive) language products, and I plan to eventually cover as many of the other major ones as possible in future, however I can't say that any of the expensive ones are that fantastic. The best thing by far is to speak to people. I discuss how to do that in the Speak from Day One videos & Language Hacking Guide. Included in the guide is a list of conversational connectors; some interesting phrases to help you get your language flowing. However, other books that I do recommend you start with to get your most important content needed to fill your sentences and understand others include:
- Travel phrasebooks. I'm a big fan of Lonely Planet‘s series (despite not being much of a fan of their guidebooks) as they are very cheap and cover a very wide range of typical basic phrases you will need. This is an excellent start to getting you into the basic flow of speaking by starting with the essentials, and they have a couple of pages giving a (very superficial) glance over grammar. Learn these phrases and use them immediately. Check out the full list on Amazon.com to find your target language.
- My favourite books for actually getting a nice overview of the language, with grammar and vocabulary covered in as efficient a way as possible with good prioritisation, are (add the name of your language to the search on these pages) Teach Yourself and Colloquial.
- For some more in-depth grammar, I always go for the “Comprehensive Grammars” series. No pictures, no storylines, just pure grammatical explanations and done so very clearly and exhaustively. Only recommended for when you have a good flow of the language and are ready to tidy it up. Never start with a grammar book!!
While all of these can help give the language some foundation in your mind, only consistent practice (yes, even before you have learned the majority of the basics) will let you get into a useful flow that will allow you to learn quickly. If you want my most concise summary of all for how to do that, make sure to check out my TEDx talk!
*Lee este articulo en espanol aqui!
(Read this article in Spanish here!)
