Unconventional language hacking tips from Benny the Irish polyglot; travelling the world to learn languages to fluency and beyond!
My life is so unfair – forget the starving children in Africa, or people with terminal illnesses; they have no idea what I have to put up with. I have seperable verbs and conjugations to deal with. Oh, woe is me!! For example, German has strange word orders, prepositions at the end of sentences that […]
If you ask someone the question “Are you close-minded?” the answer will almost certainly be a no. I don’t think anyone in the world sees themselves as closed minded. They are always sceptical or simply convinced that the other guy is wrong. The description closed minded is one we tend to reserve for someone else. […]
The Irish language (Gaeilge) is completely different to English, but is easier to learn than you might think.
When considering where to move to in a country, there seems to be this general consensus that you’ll have a greater feeling of immersion, both cultural and linguistic, if you choose a small town / village over a major city. I disagree. If you happen to like villages for their serenity, pace of life etc., […]
Travel update: no language tips in this (long) post! After travelling for about 7 years already, I thought I was immune to surprises, shocks and general wide-eyed awe. And then I came to Thailand! There’s nothing I can say about Thailand that hasn’t already been blogged, Lonely Planeted, Documentary Channelled, photographed or twittered a million […]
Preface Na’vi is the language spoken by the fictional aliens in the currently very popular movie Avatar. Even though it’s “just a movie”, Na’vi is an “actual” (constructed) language. It has vocabulary and grammar and was developed by linguist Paul Frommer. He’s hoping it will become the new “Klingon” of movie languages. Since the whole […]
Those of you who have been following this blog and reading some of my best tips, know that sometimes I focus on advice for those of you already abroad. Even though you don’t have to be rich to be able to travel to another country to learn a language, sometimes it just isn’t desirable or […]
I’ve always said that total immersion and avoiding English are the key to learning a language quickly. However, even when living in the country, watching TV, socialising and doing everything else in the local language, you may still be exposed to too much English on your computer. And if you can’t travel yet to practise […]
Exactly a month ago I arrived in Rio with the mission of becoming Brazilian in 3 months. As in my previous language mission, I’ll give a monthly update for those curious of my progress, and my hopes of reaching the goal of walking the walk and talking the talk enough to convince some Cariocas that […]
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