Articles


Books are dead – it’s time to ditch 15th century technology

written by Benny Lewis

The printing press was invented in 1440. Apart from the Internet, this one invention is probably one of the most incredible things that happened in the last millennium to help spread ideas – books and the ideas they contain have transformed the world. And yet, almost nothing has changed since the 15th century in the […]


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Reading time: 11 minutes

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What is the best language learning course? Looking at the numbers

What is the best language learning course? Looking at the numbers

written by Benny Lewis

Any answer to the question posed in the title of this post will inevitably be loaded with presumptions, bias, personality preference, anecdotal or confused sources of evidence, guesses with no actual experience, irrelevant criteria and many other things that lead it to give an impossible or misleading real answer, because simply, there is just no […]


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Reading time: 10 minutes

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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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