Articles


Why getting mistaken for a native speaker is much easier than you think

written by Benny Lewis

Someone thinking you are a native speaker of your target language is the holy grail of language learners. It’s something many of us dream about, but then sigh to ourselves that it’s just never going to happen. Well, today I want to burst that bubble and tell you that many people genuinely thinking you are […]


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Reading time: 14 minutes

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Benny’s 3.25 month video: questions that waste your time

written by Benny Lewis

Here you go! My 3 month and one week Mandarin video! [Video also available on Youku. Click CC to enable captions in English, Simplified Chinese, or Traditional Chinese] My interviewer is John Pasden, who writes at the 10-year-strong blog dedicated to all things Chinese-learning, Sinosplice. He is a co-host at Chinesepod (which I’ve been listening […]


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Reading time: 2 minutes

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Analyse your mistakes: An honest look at what I did wrong these 3 months

written by Benny Lewis

As you all know, there are countless ways to go about learning a language. I have a general plan of action that I like to apply myself, but there’s no such thing as a “perfect” way to learn a language. Perfection is not something that humans need to concern themselves with in anything outside the […]


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Reading time: 20 minutes

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Is fluency in 3 months possible?

written by Benny Lewis

One confusion people have when they arrive on my site is this non-existent “claim” that I’m here to prove that fluency in 3 months is possible, which I’ve never made. Proving this is not the point of the site. But I find the question itself (asked generally) quite silly: of course it’s possible. When a […]


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Reading time: 10 minutes

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When climbing any mountain, focus on the steps, not on how steep it is

written by Benny Lewis

Back in December, I hiked a segment of the Inca trail over several days to eventually end up at Machu Picchu. This photo is of me looking on to Huayna Picchu (in Quechua, literally “the young peak”, where Machu Picchu is “the old peak”); about 400m (or 1,300ft) of vertical hiking that I still had […]


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Reading time: 5 minutes

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The simple guide to adding captions/subtitles to Youtube videos: My 2.5 month Mandarin video

written by Benny Lewis

First thing’s first: This video is my 2.5 month point in Mandarin! Subtitles included in Simplified and Traditional Chinese, as well as English. [Youku version  here] I met up with fellow Youtube polyglot Mike, a.k.a. Glossika and he agreed to bounce some questions off me to demonstrate my progress since the last video. Check out […]

Free online Irish language learning resources and cool videos

written by Benny Lewis

This weekend is St. Patrick’s Day, the background of which I discussed in this post a year ago (while insisting that Americans do NOT call it “Patty’s day”) Another thing that happens this week is Seachtain na Gaeilge [literally, Irish (language) week] – an awareness initiative aligning with the week leading up to or around […]