25 Must-Know Halloween Words for a Spooky Season
Halloween is just around the corner, and it's time to brush up on your spooky vocabulary with some special Halloween words!
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Are you problem minded or solution minded? My 1.5 month level of Chinese [video]
Since we are at exactly the half-way point of my three month mission to speak fluent Chinese, it’s time for another video update! This time, it is 100% unprepared, unscripted, and unrehearsed 😉 Check it out: [Subtitles in traditional & simplified Chinese, as well as in English; enable Youtube’s closed captioning to see – mistakes […]
Why impatience is a virtue and taking your time is wasting your time
It’s about time I discuss one of the biggest questions I get asked by readers: What’s the rush? Not just about my time-restricted objective, but in general – why try to learn a language so fast? Shouldn’t you take a few years to absorb it? I’ve discussed before that my 3-month deadline is not some […]
When disliking learning languages can be a really good thing
It may seem like the last thing you’d expect to read on a blog that discusses language learning so much, but I don’t actually like learning languages. It’s quite an oddity in language learning circles, because if you talk to linguists and read many other language learning blogs and forums, you can feel their passion […]
Benny’s 1 month level of Mandarin: Lantern festival interviews!
[Make sure to enable captions in either English or original traditional Chinese. If Youtube is blocked for you, you can watch the video on Youku] Here it is! My one month point in my 3-month Mandarin mission, shared on video! The first few seconds are me reading a prepared text off camera to practice speaking […]
Progress report: Thoughts on one month of learning Mandarin & some FAQs
It’s been one month (and a couple of days) since I got into Taipei with the objective to speak fluent Mandarin in 3 months. So it’s about time I gave you a status report on my progress, before I share my next Mandarin video with you on Friday tomorrow! (This photo is a teaser for […]
How many words do you need to speak a language fluently?
Sometimes on this blog, I like to ask really stupid questions (or make stupid statements) in the post title, and then explain how idiotic I think the question is in the first place within the actual post, and explain an alternative way of looking at it. This is one of those times! I’ve been getting […]
6 short videos to help you configure your very own reality distortion field
The late and great Steve Jobs was famous for many things, and was arguably one of the most influential contributors to how advanced personal use technology developed over the last few decades. But another thing that he was quite well known for, which definitely contributed a huge amount to how much he achieved, was his […]
The only way to get far quickly is to get out of your comfort zone (my typical day learning Mandarin)
One problem with seeing the end-result of any feat, is not understanding the processes that went on to get to that point. As my friend Khatzumoto said to me once; Olympic coverage really ticks me off… you can’t just go up to a person on game day and say how talented they are. So I […]
Benny’s first video attempt in Mandarin: 2 weeks after starting
[Captions in English, Traditional Chinese (native written) & Simplified Chinese (automatic conversion). If you live in China and Youtube is blocked, then check out this video on Youku] As I’ve explained in great detail before, uploading a video of yourself speaking just after you’ve started to learn a language can be very beneficial. So with […]
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