TEDxSanAntonio - Benny Lewis - Fluent in Three Months - Rapid Language Hacking

[penivos]

My favourite Benny Tip is 2-weeks-of-esperanto, check it out, it works!

[Thulfeqar]

TEDxSanAntonio needs to invest in some carpeting. Can you say that in a different language?

[GalaxySuperGirl]

You take after some Dicaprio's face features. Are you sure you're not his relative?

[GalaxySuperGirl]

It works easily!!!! 

[orangeroomstudios]

The only attempted hacking going on here is that on our reason and the logic of learning. Inspirational? Yes. But neither accurate, honest, or recommendable.

[Genktarov]

All you haters, go try this before you bash it. It works.

[EthanCaineDotCom]

Go Benny! Nice Talk...

[Mixarenan]

Wow. There are numerous logic flaws in his technique, which was explained in a half-assed manner.

[AnonaNicole]

@Mixarenan What were they?

[r3bol]

I went to McDonalds in Spain and asked for a dick sandwich instead of a chicken sandwich.

[definingpossible]

He seems very nervous but he did very good.

[AnAmericanlinguist]

Great talk, Benny! 

[aethelwulf19]

Portugese, spanish, and french are all the same language, sorry. try learning Japanese or Chinese!

[irishpolyglot]

@aethelwulf19 I *am* learning Chinese actually :)

[AnonaNicole]

@aethelwulf19 The point is still relevant. I studied Japanese and lived there. From an English speaker perspective there are a lot of words at your disposal due to the influx of English words in the language. I have recently started Chinese so I don't know yet.

[SleazyNice]

So you had six months of input in Spain, BEFORE you started to speak. So your message is: INPUT before OUTPUT!

[hanneesh]

"I don't have the language talent, the language gene"

you don't. Leave it to the pros my friend.

[ToxinMortalis]

I always has a suspicion that it was a practice vs. studying issue.

[hailvishnu]

Yo no aprendí mi segunda lengua hasta la edad de quince o dieciséis. No hay edad fijo para aprender (o no) una lengua. Ahora aprendo ruso e italiano. (El italiano es difícil porque es muy parecido al español pero es muy fácil comprenderlo.)

[AdornThyHeadset]

Great talk Benny!

I am currently living in Estonia for a year, but during the first months I wasn't particularly motivated to learn the language (Estonian). Recently, however, I've told everyone I have contact with to go full Estonian with me... Learning a lot more of the language this way for sure.

[KatxThexRipper]

whoot this is how I learned Italian, but through busuu.com.

Piacere conoscerti benny! Vado a Italia in giugno :D

I speak English, Spanish, and Italian. Some French, and some German.

[Dharonious]

Great talk. Kind of makes my life more difficult though. I don't have the time to do this! Or rather, I don't feel I want to take the time to do this instead of all the other things I want to do. Now I just have the anxiety that I should :P

[maokize]

you need to lose some fat benny, jeeez.

[irishpolyglot]

@maokize Ah the joys of anonymous Internet commenting, where nobody can point out YOUR obvious flaws ;)

[PassionXxKyohaku]

@maokize And your comment is relevant to the content of this video because...?

[maokize]

@PassionXxKyohaku I could say the same about your comment. You could have ignored it, but instead you decided to bring some more attention to it. Thanks. 

[PassionXxKyohaku]

@maokize Actually I wanted to voice the thought which crossed my mind so I had to leave a comment since I couldn't have telepathically send you my opinion. Still, my point stands.

[maokize]

@PassionXxKyohaku Thanks for brining more attention to my comment and continuing to contribute to the trolling.

[luksme27]

I like your shirt :D

[catbrook]

Well done Benny. Great talk - especially to say you haven't given many. I've been reading your blogs for a little while now and am completely inspired by your attitude and approach. I've even been having fun making mistakes - what a breakthrough! :-)

[laminking01]

I am happy for him, but this doesn't really take me forward in my own language learning. great for general inspiraton and as a rallying cry to the beginner.

[MrGrinningManiac]

I've been following Benny for nearly a year now and yet every time he says this stuff I take away some new, little spark of enthusiasm; some new idea about how to learn my languages; some reinvigorated belief that I can and will one day be able to speak as well as he and so many others can.

[GABIGEEGEE]

totally agree.. forget the "masculine" and " feminine" ... le la ..... etc.. just talk.. he's really good

[njrockstar]

As a former language teacher and speaker of several, I must say that Benny has made some excellent points! Slainte!

[michalgrzeskowiak]

Thank you Benny, really aprecciate that you share your mindset with us. Lots of simple and effective strategies, which clear up many aspects for me, although I'm already a polyglot.

Keep living a conscious life and being a creator :)

[mellomethod]

Great video, thanks for sharing with us all your stories and experiences. Keep your great job! Best wishes, Jimmy Mello

[BrokenBjartur]

I haven't thought about the frustration part... Most interesting! This is EXACTLY how I and a lot of other people react. We really do like it when someone tries to speak our language. Or a language I speak. Same goes for English.

The point on grammar. The reason I think it's great to learn grammar is that it's extremely compressed information. If you spend a little time on grammar, and refresh it a couple of times, it increases your understand by orders of magnitude.

__

Great talk!

[epsilon910]

Benny this was just an amazing talk! You did a great job! Keep it up!

[Vacher12]

very inspiring to see.

[kamyq1]

so to make it quicker:

1. Learn some words and phrases (phrasebook; use the beach player method)

2. Use them

3. Learn some words and phrases (other sources, including everyday life)

4. Use them too

5. Repeat 3 and 4 till you get confident and communicative

6. Get fascinated with the grammar (or just read it, will get into you easily anyway)

7. Get admired and move to another language or just live with it ;)

worked perfectly for me with Swedish, time to try German :)

[FluentCzech]

What an inspiring video, and charismatic speaker. This was wonderful.

[Rognalf]

Before reading Benny's blog, I had spent 5 years in school learning french, not even being able to have a proper conversation. And I was the best in class.

Just weeks of following his advice before arriving (even very lazily) provided enough to have basic conversations right from the start when I first landed in Peru. I partied, danced, chatted, discussed, etc. in spanish, and improved enormously!

Learn what *you* want to, not what the textbooks want you to.

[ulstercon]

Well in Bren, Fantasic vid, ill share it about. You must be fluent in Manderin by now :)

-Conor

[MyEmmaLeeRose]

this is great! just conjugation tables and rules arent language! you actually have to speak it to learn!! :)

[OShaughnessyC]

A Copernican revolution in language learning, thanks to Benny!

[irishpolyglot]

Wow cool! This is up :D I wish someone would have told me :P Fantastic editing by the camera folks, and glad I didn't stumble too much :)

[yvitube2008]

Benny, well said! "SPEAK it from day one" and not just learn it from day one, and don't over-complicate our lives with all the rules and exceptions on day 1 :)

[zassounotsukushi]

This is cool. I read this guy's blog (and I had been waiting for this talk) but I never quite got the back story, which is what this talk gives.