Hi all,
I thought I’d include this article from a a blog I love, ran by an Irish Polyglot( ie he speaks many many languages) called Benny Lewis!
Why Learning French isn’t hard — Fluent in 3 months – Language Hacking and Travel Tips
I have taken the below info from his blog on his language journey.
Who is Benny Lewis?
My name is Benny (Brendan) Lewis. I’m a 31 year old vegetarian from Cavan Ireland, I don’t drink, am not religious but am constantly full of wonder at all this incredible world has to offer through its many wonderful people. I’m also an entrepreneur and like to think of myself a “technomad” – a full-time technology-enabled globe-trotter.
Due to my work in encouraging authentic travel through language learning, I have just been awarded the title as National Geographic’s Traveler of the Year.
When I turned 21, the only language that I spoke was English and I had done quite poorly with languages in school. In fact, I initially had problems even with English and had to go to speech therapy when I was younger because of it. So I am not naturally talented with languages! I have a degree in Electronic Engineering!
My love affair with other cultures and speaking foreign languages began in 2003, after graduation when I moved to Spain. I discovered that learning languages wasn’t so hard when you apply the right method! You also have to stop making excuses that you are too old, don’t have time, too shy to try to use it etc. There are dozens of excuses, but they each have an answer!
After finally successfully reaching a confident stage in Spanish, my travels led me elsewhere. Dozens of countries and many languages (several of which I speak fluently; indicated with flags on the right) later, I am now a full-time language hacker!
I have had plenty of other jobs in the last decade such as English teacher, Mathematics teacher, French/Spanish teacher, photographer, youth hostel receptionist, tour guide, yoga store manager, first aid assistant, electronic engineer and several others. Before attempting to support myself from this blog, I was a location independent freelance translator of technical documents.
Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to be rich to travel the world! In fact, I did quite well for most of my travels on $1000/month because I’ve embraced minimalism and everything I own in the world weighs 23kg/50lbs.
I’ve had the opportunity to interact with thousands of people in over two dozen languages and write many free, in-depth posts about unconventional language learning, travelling, and interacting with different cultures.
I am currently supporting myself by sales of the Speak from Day One package, while I work on other projects related to language learning. If you like this site, maybe check it out! Sales on this in-depth explanation of my language learning approach and advice allow me to focus much more on sharing what I’ve learned in my most recent language project, as well as providing stories, tips and videos with all my readers.
I try to take apart the language learning process and explain it to people who have never had any luck trying. As many details as possible are shared on this blog, in the free monthly Language Hacking League e-mail list (subscribe on the right) and in the guide.
Subscribe to the blog if you want to follow my missions to learn languages (a completely different one every few months) and discover my unconventional “language hacking” tips.
Check him out on Facebook, he’s currently learning Japanse I think, or on Youtube here or here, plenty of resources to start learning a foreign language, as you can see from his story, it’s never too late, maybe an early new years resolution?
Cheers,
Katleen
