Articles


Speak! Or stop pretending you want to

written by Benny Lewis

If you read different sources to see what language ‘experts’ have to say about mastering a language, you’ll get such vastly different advice that sometimes it’s hard to know which one to apply. Listen a lot even when you sleep, read all day, study thousands of words of vocabulary before you are ready to speak, […]


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Reading time: 6 minutes

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Solo travel hacking: How to make new friends using a stethoscope and 200 ear plugs

Solo travel hacking: How to make new friends using a stethoscope and 200 ear plugs

written by Benny Lewis

Ever since I started travelling over nine years ago, I have arrived at each location by myself, many times not having a single contact or friend waiting for me in my destination. This has been essential for my language missions, since I need to immerse myself in the local language. Bringing someone with me to […]


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Reading time: 10 minutes

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How to learn a language in hours, not years

How to learn a language in hours, not years

written by Benny Lewis

I get told so many times that someone has been studying Spanish/French/Japanese/etc. for five, ten (or whatever) years. Despite this, in most cases, if they tell me how many years they have been studying it, it’s usually a precursor to “but… I don’t speak it!” This is usually to justify how hard their language is, […]


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Reading time: 6 minutes

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My first weeks in Budapest: Hungarian mission update

written by Benny Lewis

It’s been a few weeks since I arrived in Hungary and got my teeth into my latest mission. I had a bumpy start, but got over it and am on schedule towards my end goal! So it’s time for a mission update! 🙂 Starting with grammar: great in theory, but not useful for speaking Since […]

What's the hardest language to learn in the world?

What’s the hardest language to learn in the world?

written by Benny Lewis

If you’ve come here to find a detailed explanation categorising down to precisely one answer, or a small list of the toughest languages, then stop reading the post right now. I’m not in the business of discouraging people so if you are looking for some more discouragement, you’ve come to the wrong place! The term […]


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Reading time: 9 minutes

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Why ESL teachers are the best teachers and the best learners

written by Benny Lewis

I’ve had many jobs in the last many years on the road but the one that I could always rely on was ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher. I worked in Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Brazil, and Ireland as an English teacher for non-natives and found it to be very satisfying work. However, what I […]


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Reading time: 6 minutes

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Are German's Rude? Killing the Stereotypes

Are Germans Rude? Killing the Stereotypes

written by Benny Lewis

Rather than learning languages for academic or professional reasons, I do it to vastly improve my travel experience by allowing me to socialise almost entirely with residents of the country I am visiting. Even though all the studying I did in for my exam in Berlin prevented me from socialising as much as I would […]


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Reading time: 11 minutes

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7 reasons why you should sing to learn languages

written by Benny Lewis

Warning: This video contains a silly looking Irish guy singing a German song in bad karaoke-style. Protect your ears! Singing is an amazing way to dramatically improve your language learning strategy. To prove to you that I’m serious about this, you can see a video of me singing in German at the bottom of the post. […]


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Reading time: 3 minutes

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