“Having comfortable conversations in a new language is now more affordable than ever thanks to these incredible Black Friday deals!”
Benny Lewis,
Founder and CEO, Fluent in 3 Months
Unconventional language hacking tips from Benny the Irish polyglot; travelling the world to learn languages to fluency and beyond!
Karen who runs Immersia offers these words of encouragement – I love seeing the same realizations from such a wide range of people, and am happy to share hers with you today, especially since she has such an interesting and different background. Over to you Karen: ——— I was born in the Ukraine and my […]
My philosophy in language learning is, always has been, and always will be to Speak From Day One.
But for many people, this is terrifying! And because I have been talking so much about how effective I’ve found using Skype and language exchange websites, or in-person meetings early on in a language project to chat with native speakers right away, I’ve been asked a lot of questions about what to do if you’re too shy to speak from day one.
So today I’m going to answer these questions.
Let’s be honest. I can take it. Americans aren’t exactly known for our foreign language ability. Often, we speak English and we simply expect the rest of the world to do so as well. There are many reasons why this problem has developed, but that’s not the purpose of this article.
As with all stereotypes there is both a bit of truth here as well as many exceptions. I’m an American diplomat (or Foreign Service Officer as we’re officially known) and it is not only helpful in my job to learn foreign languages, it is required.
When I tell people that I am trying to learn Iñupiaq, the native language of my hometown in Northern Alaska, invariably I hear a long, drawn-out, “Whyyyy?” “Not many people speak the language, so what’s the use of learning it?” “Almost all the people who can speak English anyways, right?” “I thought you were a white guy?”
All these questions are of course ridiculous and to prove all the naysayers wrong, here are 5 reasons why learning an endangered language is not only a supremely gratifying endeavor, but it’s one that can be done more easily than you think! I have experienced this by attempting to learn Iñupiaq, but these reasons can apply to any endangered language!
Let’s share another “Why a supposedly hard language isn’t as impossible as you thought” type post! This time from Cantonese native speaker Brian, who has guest posted here before and who organizes the Add1 challenge (now the Fluent in 3 Months Challenge). One of the challengers, Jan, took on Cantonese for his project and you […]
Thanks for following along in my Japanese project! Right now there should be two weeks left, but realistically what was initially a three month project has morphed into a two month one. This final month has led to another secret project of mine taking over! [Edit: Several months before this Japanese project, I had written my first […]
Tomorrow I’ll be updating you on my Japanese project, but until then though, I want to share this excellent video by my friend Scott Young, who has guest posted here and whose Spanish project I introduced you to 3 months ago. This video was edited by Vat, who was also learning Spanish intensively. It’s an […]
The issue of parents teaching their children comes up often and I’ve even had someone guest post on the blog about it before. That’s great if you speak the languages yourself, but what if you are monolingual and still want to give your child the best possible head start in this wonderfully global world?
Christine, who blogs at AlmostFearless and who has been travelling with her husband since 2008, has thought long and hard about this while she raises her own son, and is even writing a book about the experience. If you want to help out, see details at the end of the post. Otherwise, enjoy her take on what parents can do to help their children learn languages that the parents themselves don’t speak fluently yet!
Note: While I was initially aiming for 3 months, unfortunately preparations for my published book took up all of my time and I had to end the project at this 2 month point. Summary of the project is given here, but this video below represents the end point of the 2-months that were intensive in […]
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