Benny Lewis is a permanent traveler who’s been globe trotting for over seven years, learning languages as he goes. To hear him tell it, he wasn’t particularly talented when it came to learning languages in an academic setting, but his love for them came about in 2003, after a trip to Spain, where he immersed himself in the local culture and discovered that learning languages isn’t so difficult when you approach it with the right mindset. He now speaks seven languages fluently (and several others partially), and holds himself accountable to learning new languages in just 3 months, earning himself the fitting nickname Benny the Irish Polyglot.
His passion for linguistics and cultures has led him to nearly twenty countries, and also led him to seek out online work that would enable his full-time travels. He calls himself a “technomad”—a technology-enabled, location-independent freelancer, combining his electronic engineering degree from University College Dublin with his deep linguistic knowledge translating technical documents and picking up different jobs anywhere he travels.
I had the pleasure to spend some time with Benny on his recent trip to Bangkok, and sat down with him to talk about his travels and his unconventional approach to learning languages. He stresses the importance of confidence in your speaking abilities, and insists that it’s not necessary to speak perfectly at the start, but it is necessary to start! He also has unique tips for making the time to learn a new language, and assures people that you don’t have to travel to learn or maintain languages.
If you’ve ever been interested to pick up even a little of the local language when you travel abroad, or to reach fluency in a second or third language, give our video a watch below:
- 1:20 – All about Benny’s 3-month language missions
- 2:00 – How a blogs can help you achieve your goals
- 2:56 – Language hacking versus academic language learning
- 5:15 – The importance of attitude; Is your language half full?
- 6:45 – Language-learning methods, image-association
- 8:10 – 3 top language-hacking tips
- 11:40 – How to keep a language fresh when you aren’t actively using it (Benny recommends using Couchsurfing.com, Meetup.com, LiveMocha.com)
- 13:40 – Travels & tech nomad experience
- 15:20 – Get specific with your language-learning objectives
- 16:25 – Confidence and re-framing your mindset about languages
Here’s a quick video of the Thai he learned (in a matter of days) while he was here, which also illustrates his emphasis on “filtering”:
Maybe you’ve struggled trying to learn a language before but were never successful…
Wouldn’t it be great if you didn’t have to spend years before you were able to converse in a foreign language? If you were able to start speaking from day ONE? Doesn’t that sound like something you’d love to be able to do?
Imagine, not being scared by all the grammar and vocabulary you feel like you need to know before you’d be comfortable speaking…
For confidence boosters and language hacks to get you started communicating immediately, get your copy of Benny’s new Language Hacking Guide today, compiled after over 7 years of experience.
As you consider the benefits of deciding to learn Benny’s method, you might like to see some examples of the expert insight he can offer you. You can follow his travel-hacking videos (in seven different languages) at IrishPolyglot.com, and follow his 3-month language missions and language-hacking tips by subscribing to his blog FluentIn3Months.com. Some of his best tips and advice:
- How to take as much as you like in your hand luggage
- How to speak Portuguese as if you were from Rio
- How to practice a foreign language for free without traveling
- How to speak a language pretty well, starting from scratch, in just two months
- The smartest decision you will ever make to achieve fluency
If you want to learn a new language effectively, click here to get your own copy of Benny’s invaluable Language Hacking Guide now!
Great interview guys!
I’ve been endlessly impressed by Benny’s language skills, but I love how he really breaks it down here. Like anything in life, if you focus hard, you will have success. No excuses.
Karol
Awesome interview! I’m a total Benny Lewis fan.
I’m now following Benny. I appreciate the interview, and I’ll be checking out his program. I’ve wanted to learn Spanish for so long. 2 years of Spanish classes in highschool was challenging, but I never attained fluency(I think very much for the reason Benny gave in video. The aim was perfection)
Anyway…great post/interview Cody!
Thanks for this Cody!! It turned out great
More details on the program coming next week hopefully, although browsing my past posts you’ll definitely get the gist of the what I’ll be discussing 
@Karol Hope to see you back in the old continent this summer!
@Dan Cool – I’m a DanFan
@Veron Hope to hear more from you, and hope my suggestions help with your español
Wow, Benny really has it down to a science. For years, one of my goals has been to become fluent in Spanish. One of my ongoing excuses to myself is that I think I have to interact with Spanish speaking people on a regular basis in order to learn/maintain. I know that’s a bad excuse. I’ll use some of Benny’s techniques here to get myself started.
Never heard of Benny before, but will be checking him out now. I believe languages can be picked up quickly (I mean if a baby with an undeveloped brain can pick up a language within a couple of years, an educated adult must be able to do it quicker…).
I am learning Japanese at the moment using the Michel Thomas program, which is better than most audio self-teaching programs. I am already a lot better at it than I am at French which I studied for 5 years at school acedemically.
Unable to watch the video due to poor internet, will do when I return to Thailand shortly though.
Thanks for the interview, it was very interesting. Benny, you said that when you were twenty you were super shy. What did you do to change that? I believe that it’s crucial to know how to socialize with other people in order to learn new language, but how to become more sociable? It’s especially important when you are moving to a new place in which you don’t know anyone – how to make friends in this case? What do you do? What did you do to change your mentality from “super shy” to “super confident”?
Hi Marcin!
Yes, it’s quite a catch 22 – to know how to socialise you need to become more social…
I discussed it in this post. Basically we are scared to meet new people so to overcome that fear you have to face it. It’s really hard but you have to get out there and “social skydive” (as a friend of mine puts it).
When there is no particular goal (like to get a girl’s phone number or whatever), you can’t really fail. But you’ll get embarrassed a lot the first time, less the second time and after the 1000th time you aren’t quite super shy any more
Even now I still have that shyness to a certain extent – the second video shown here was edited down and I mention on my site that I did the intro over 15 takes. In the first one I was really nervous because it was the first time I was ever saying more than 2 words in Thai, but after I made the mistakes on camera, repeated it and relaxed, it started to flow more easily
People don’t bite, go out social skydiving
I am so impressed with Benny. I wonder how many languages he’ll know in his lifetime. I really appreciate people that like to learn other countries culture and language. Big respect to you Benny.
Hey Cody (and Benny),
The biggest issue for me is definitely keeping a language fresh when I’m not using it. I’m nowhere near as proficient as Benny, but I was fluent in two languages and passable in 2 more (4 total). It always takes me a while to get warmed up again and back into the groove of speaking other languages now, since I speak (and write) English all the time.
Thanks for the comments everyone!
@Sid This is why my approach is pure jump-in-the-deep end. Getting warmed up takes too much time!
@Wilson Thanks for the compliments mate!! But I keep saying that I’m not that special; anyone can learn a bunch of languages. Hopefully my tips will give rise to an explosion in native-English polyglots. When such a thing is no longer impressive and becomes the norm, then my current major life mission will be complete!
Benny – thanks for the answer. I guess I just should go “social skydiving” or become “social scientist” haha. Ain’t nothing to it, but to do it!
In the interview, Benny says something about his own definition of “fluency.” Curiously, what does fluency mean to him? I’ve always struggled with the concept.
@Alan I wrote a whole post about my definition so there’d be no confusion and that I could refer back to it
Thanks, Benny. Reading it now! Enjoyed your interview with Cody–hoping our travel paths will cross at some point! Let me know if you need any help with Nepali
Fun language to speak, you sound like a Star Wars Ewok!
Impressive! I like his “just start” methods and putting himself on a timeline, he puts himself in a situation where he has to expand to learn the language. Awesome! Checking out his content.
-r
So awesome, you make me green with envy & inspired at the same time. Hard combo to hit I tell you
Boy this stirs up the fires of travel in me like no other… I will meet you in your world travels someday my friend!
Because of this post, I’ve read a bunch of articles at Fluent in 3 Months. It’s good stuff.
The depth of Benny’s efforts is multi-layered and has so many ramifications because language breaks down the barriers and borders that exist between people…Yikes!