Articles


What can you do in 4 hours? Benny's first Indonesian class

What can you do in 4 hours? Benny’s first Indonesian class

written by Benny Lewis

Inspired by Moses McCormick’s unfiltered uploads, I’ve decided to share an unedited crucial moment in my language learning processes; both the first time I’ve ever spoken the language and my first ever class. What I did was study four hours over 2 days last week, starting from absolute scratch, and then on day 2 of studying […]


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Reading time: 1 minutes

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Stop Allowing Excuses to Run Your Life!

Stop Allowing Excuses to Run Your Life!

written by Benny Lewis

In my inbox I see hundreds of people sharing their language learning woes every day, and in person I meet many people everywhere I go who struggle to start a language. There are many reasons they give, some of which are valid, but many times they are just excuses. Nothing reminds us more of this […]


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Reading time: 8 minutes

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Singlish: The Singaporean English creole [video interview]

Singlish: The Singaporean English creole [video interview]

written by Benny Lewis

Singlish When most people think of learning a new language, they tend to imagine official languages of countries. There are of course many languages (like Quechua) that get often neglected by governments, artificial languages and a whole spectrum of many other possibilities. As well as these well defined separate “languages”, I’m also very much interested […]


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Reading time: 2 minutes

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Juggling Languages: The Balancing Act That All Polyglots Must Perform

Juggling Languages: The Balancing Act That All Polyglots Must Perform

written by Benny Lewis

Polyglottery is a bit of a balancing act. Because we only have so many hours in a day, we can’t learn all languages. But when you have the itch for language learning like I and so many other polyglots do, you sometimes can’t help but to take on a new language challenge even though you […]


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Reading time: 6 minutes

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How do you get spoken practice in a less common language, when you can't find native speakers?

How Do You Get Spoken Practice in a Less Common Language?

written by Benny Lewis

How do you get language practise when native speakers are genuinely hard to come by? Simple idea, but very effective: Find other learners My friend Brandon initially had this very issue with his project to learn Icelandic. It’s a country of just 300,000 people, and they are not so likely to be on language learning […]


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Reading time: 4 minutes

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Forget “learning a language.” Focus on forming the habit.

Forget “learning a language.” Focus on forming the habit.

written by Guest Author

Meet Maneesh Sethi. Maneesh is a friend, an inventor, and a fellow language learner (he has been a DJ in Berlin, and spoken on stage in Italian, among other things) with a very particular passion… For years, he has been obsessed with solving the problem of maintaining motivation that we all face in trying to […]


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Reading time: 16 minutes

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