Benny Lewis

Last updated

Benny Lewis
Benny Lewis at TEDx Warsaw 2013 (cropped).jpg
Lewis at a TEDx event in Warsaw in 2013
Born
Brendan Richard Lewis

1981or1982(age 41–42)
NationalityIrish
Occupations
  • Author
  • blogger

Brendan Richard Lewis [1] (born 1981/1982) [2] is an Irish author and blogger who defines himself as a "technomad language hacker". [3] He is best known for his website Fluent in 3 Months, on which he documents personal attempts to learn languages within short time periods, [4] typically three months.

Contents

Lewis is the author of the book Fluent in 3 Months (2014) [5] as well as a language courses series titled Language Hacking, including Spanish, French, German, and Italian. [6]

Early life

Born in Ireland, Lewis has described himself as mediocre in languages at school, [7] getting a C in German and just managing to pass his Irish language exams. [8] He graduated in electronic engineering from University College Dublin [8] and then spent time struggling to learn Spanish in Spain, [9] where it took him over a year to learn the language. [10] His frustration with conventional methods led him to take a different approach to language learning, as described in his book and website Fluent in 3 Months. [5]

Career

Lewis is the founder and CEO of the website Fluent in 3 Months. [11]

He has given two talks on TEDx. [12] In 2013, he was named a Traveler of the Year by National Geographic magazine. [13]

He has authored five books, including Fluent in 3 Months (2014), [5] as well as four course books written in collaboration with Teach Yourself: Language Hacking Spanish, [14] Language Hacking French, [15] Language Hacking German, [16] and Language Hacking Italian. [17] He has also coached and given private language lessons by telephone and Skype. [18]

Language learning approach

Lewis claims that anyone can learn a language to fluency in as little as three months. [19] Lewis understands fluency as "social equivalency", meaning that he "can function in social situations pretty much the same in [his] target language as [he] would in [his] native one". [20] His approach is to start speaking a new language from the very first day, ignoring mistakes and using very basic language like "me want go supermarket." [8]

Lewis explains the name of his business Fluent in 3 Months as follows:

The name of the blog causes a lot of confusion for people when they first arrive on my site. I'm not promising any special time line for people studying a language; doing so would be ridiculous because the amount of work people put in is too varied. Most people take years to learn just the basics of a language because they do it so wrong, so of course a claim of “3 months” would sound arrogant to them. It's called “Fluent in 3 Months” because I move to a new country, usually for about 3 months and I tend to aim to speak the local language fluently. The name of the blog is from my objectives in both travel and language learning. This blog documents my own language learning journeys and shares the ideas that make it all possible. The title of the blog is an objective[,] not a promise of a magic solution for all. [21]

Language learning projects

To date, Lewis has documented attempts to learn over 20 languages to varying degrees of fluency over short time periods—typically three months—some successful, some not. [22] He publicly shares his experiences on his website with a combination of blog posts and YouTube video footage. [8] He started recording his efforts in 2009 partly to prove it was possible to learn a language fluently in three months. [23]

His claims have been met with some scepticism. Noted polyglots like Steve Kaufmann have looked at his results and noted it is largely not possible to become fluent in a new language in such a short time. [24] Other research indicates that a realistic time to learn languages such as English or French, without immersion, is 8 months as a minimum, depending on a number of variables. [25]

Czech (2009)

On 1 June 2009, Lewis launched the Fluent in 3 Months blog with a post announcing he would learn "fluent" Czech within 3 months. [26] After his 3-month mission, he expected to be able to:

have comfortable conversations with locals about a wide range of topics, without a strong accent and with a good enough command of the language for expressing myself clearly in many social situations and understanding as much as possible.

After 3 months, on 1 September 2009, Lewis stated that he had studied Czech for "two months" with a "casual part-time commitment" due to an increased workload to pay off a debt. He assessed himself as having reached a "pretty good level" in the language. [27] however, he himself admitted he had failed to achieve his goal of achieving fluency in his 3 months of learning, partly because of its case system. [28]

Brazilian Portuguese (2009)

In September 2009, Lewis announced that his next language mission was to spend three months in Brazil. He explained his aim for this mission as follows: "I want several Brazilians to have believed that not only am I speaking Portuguese as good as a native, but that I actually am a native." Before starting this mission Lewis had 8 months exposure to Portuguese, having lived in Brazil previously.

At the end of this project December 2009, Lewis stated that the mission had been a "partial success" with some Brazilians believing he was a native speaker for periods of up to 30 seconds. At one point he was put in a police cell for being cheeky to a Brazilian policewoman. [29]

German (2010)

In 2010, Lewis announced that he planned to learn German to the level of "mastery" within a period of three months. He explained the mission as follows:

My mission will be to convince Germans that I'm a Berliner by the end of June, and to sit the Goethe-Zertifikat C2: Zentrale Oberstufenprüfung examination. The level required for this examination goes way beyond fluency; it is for Mastery of a language." [30]

Prior to starting this mission, he had studied German for five years at school. He stated that those years of study had been "wasted", and that after all that time he still could not speak German.

At the end of the three-month project, Benny shared the results of the Goethe-Zertifikat C2: Zentrale Oberstufenprüfung examination. He stated that he was "very pleased" with the results adding that he had "passed" four out of the five elements of the exam. He failed the element on listening comprehension. [31]

Chinese (2012)

Lewis made attempts at learning both Japanese and Chinese to levels of fluency in the space of three months. He admitted he found these the most difficult languages he had attempted to learn [7] and only partially achieved the goals he set himself for these languages. That said, he did achieve some success in learning these languages. [32] [33]

Lewis announced in January 2012 that he would undertake a project to learn Mandarin to fluency, specifically stating a goal to attain C1 level in the European Language level Framework in the space of three months. [34] [35] After endeavouring to learn the language, he was assessed by a Chinese language teacher after 5 months (28 May 2012) [36] who assessed his ability in detail, stating that his spoken ability was "very impressive", however he was assessed at a B1:lower intermediate level, below what he had desired to achieve. His listening skills were assessed as "very good". His reading and writing abilities were assessed to be at a level below B1 and after 5 months, and overall, he failed to achieve the level of fluency (C1 Level) he had stated he was aiming for at the start of the "mission". [32]

Following the challenge Lewis reflected that his unfamiliarity with the norms of Taiwanese social interaction had made learning Mandarin using his methods more challenging than languages he had previously studied. [37]

Japanese (2013)

In 2013 Lewis announced that he would attempt to learn Japanese to the level of fluency (N2 level [38] the second highest level in the Japanese-Language Proficiency Test), in the space of three months. This was met with some skepticism by fellow polyglots/language bloggers [35] [39] including fellow hyperpolyglot Steve Kaufmann, [40] who said it was not possible to achieve fluency in Japanese in that period of time. [41] After starting the project, Lewis initially pushed the deadline for achieving fluency back by two weeks, then ultimately stopped the project after failing to achieve fluency, achieving a basic level of Japanese. [33]

Awards

Lewis was awarded a "Language Ambassador of the Year" award in 2012. [42] He was named National Geographic Traveler of the Year in 2013. [43]

Publications

Related Research Articles

A second language (L2) is a language spoken in addition to one's first language (L1). A second language may be a neighbouring language, another language of the speaker's home country, or a foreign language. A speaker's dominant language, which is the language a speaker uses most or is most comfortable with, is not necessarily the speaker's first language. For example, the Canadian census defines first language for its purposes as "the first language learned in childhood and still spoken", recognizing that for some, the earliest language may be lost, a process known as language attrition. This can happen when young children start school or move to a new language environment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">First language</span> Language a person is exposed to from birth

A first language (L1), native language, native tongue, or mother tongue is the first language a person has been exposed to from birth or within the critical period. In some countries, the term native language or mother tongue refers to the language of one's ethnic group rather than the individual's actual first language. Generally, to state a language as a mother tongue, one must have full native fluency in that language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kató Lomb</span> Hungarian interpreter and translator

Kató Lomb was a Hungarian interpreter, translator and one of the first simultaneous interpreters in the world. Originally educated in physics and chemistry, her interest soon led her to languages. Native in Hungarian, she could interpret fluently in nine or ten languages, translated technical literature, and read belles-lettres in six languages. She was able to understand journalism in a further 11 languages. She stated that she worked professionally with 16 languages, which she learned mostly by self-study due to her interest in them.

Monoglottism or, more commonly, monolingualism or unilingualism, is the condition of being able to speak only a single language, as opposed to multilingualism. In a different context, "unilingualism" may refer to a language policy which enforces an official or national language over others.

Wlpan is the name of an intensive Welsh course for beginners used by some Welsh for Adults courses in Wales. It began in the mid 1970s. Courses continue to be taught, in person and through the internet. The course teaches basic patterns in as short a time as possible.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Serrano language</span> Uto-Aztecan language of southern California

Serrano is a language in the Serran branch of the Uto-Aztecan family spoken by the Serrano people of Southern California. The language is closely related to Tongva, Tataviam, Kitanemuk and Vanyume. Serrano has free word order with the only rule being that verbs usually come last.

Fluency refers to continuity, smoothness, rate, and effort in speech production. It is also used to characterize language production, language ability or language proficiency.

Livemocha was an online language learning community based in Seattle, Washington. It provided instructional materials in 38 languages and a platform for speakers to interact with and help each other learn new languages. According to the site, it had approximately 12 million registered members from 196 countries around the globe. It was free to join and use; however, it offered the option to pay for various benefits. In 2012, 400,000 users visited the site daily.

Babbel GmbH, operating as Babbel, is a German subscription-based language learning software and e-learning platform, available in various languages since January 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pimsleur Language Programs</span> Language learning company

Pimsleur Language Programs is an American language learning company that develops and publishes courses based on the Pimsleur method. It is a division of Simon & Schuster, a publishing company which is a subsidiary of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts. Pimsleur offers courses for 50 languages with English as the source language, and 14 ESL courses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Duolingo</span> American educational technology company

Duolingo, Inc. is an American educational technology company that produces learning apps and provides language certification. Duolingo offers courses on music, math, and 43 languages, ranging from English, French, and Spanish to less commonly studied languages such as Welsh and Irish. Other services include the Duolingo English Test, an online certification program, and Duolingo ABC, a literacy app for children. The company uses a freemium model, with its optional premium service, Super Duolingo, being ad-free and offering more features.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Codecademy</span> Online code-learning platform

Codecademy is an American online interactive platform that offers free coding classes in 12 different programming languages including Python, Java, Go, JavaScript, Ruby, SQL, C++, C#, and Swift, as well as markup languages HTML and CSS. The site also offers a paid "Pro" option that gives users access to personalized learning plans, quizzes, and realistic projects.

Powell Alexander Janulus is a Canadian polyglot who lives in White Rock, British Columbia, and entered the Guinness World Records in 1985 for fluency in 42 languages. To qualify, he had to pass a two-hour conversational fluency test with a native speaker of each of the 42 languages he spoke at that time.

Ioannis Ikonomou is a Greek translator who has been working for the European Commission in Brussels since 2002. Considered a notable contemporary example of a polyglot, he knows 32 living languages including Greek, English, German, Italian, Spanish, French, Finnish, Danish, Russian, Swahili, Hebrew, Arabic, Mandarin and Bengali, and reportedly as many as 47 languages including dead languages like Old Church Slavonic. He speaks 21 out of 24 official EU languages. He considers the Mandarin language as the most complicated language to learn. Chinese is also his favorite language. He is the only in-house translator of the European Commission who is trusted to translate classified Chinese documents.

Google Neural Machine Translation (GNMT) was a neural machine translation (NMT) system developed by Google and introduced in November 2016 that used an artificial neural network to increase fluency and accuracy in Google Translate. The neural network consisted of two main blocks, an encoder and a decoder, both of LSTM architecture with 8 1024-wide layers each and a simple 1-layer 1024-wide feedforward attention mechanism connecting them. The total number of parameters has been variously described as over 160 million, approximately 210 million, 278 million or 380 million. By 2020, the system had been replaced by another deep learning system based on transformers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Simcott</span> British polyglot

Richard Simcott is a British polyglot who lives in Skopje, North Macedonia. He speaks 16 languages fluently. HarperCollins referred to him as "One of the most multilingual people from the United Kingdom". Besides the languages that he exhibits fluency in, he has also actively studied more than 50 languages at some point in his career.

James Marvin Brown was an American linguist who studied the evolution of Thai and related languages, supervised the teaching of English and Thai at AUA Language Center, Bangkok, Thailand and developed the Automatic Language Growth approach to language teaching.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steve Kaufmann</span> Canadian YouTuber (born 1945)

Steve Kaufmann is a Canadian polyglot and internet personality known for his language-learning content on YouTube, and the LingQ online language-learning platform which he co-founded.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moses McCormick</span> American YouTuber (1981–2021)

Moses Monweal McCormick, also known as Laoshu or Laoshu505000, was an American YouTuber and language coach.

Arieh Smith, better known as Xiaomanyc or simply Xiaoma, is an American YouTuber and polyglot, best known for his videos where he speaks various languages with people from different cultures. The New York Times credited his channel as one of the most popular polyglot YouTube channels. He has been profiled in news publications such as The Independent, The Indian Express, and The Daily Dot.

References

  1. ↑ "Lewis, Benny (Brendan Richard)". Library of Congress.
  2. ↑ Williams, Martin (5 September 2013). "Natural born linguists: what drives multi-language speakers?". The Guardian . Archived from the original on 30 December 2013.
  3. ↑ DuShane, Tony (2 July 2014). "Benny Lewis talks up Skype as new way to learn a language". Sfgate.com. Retrieved 21 March 2015. Via Skype, you set up a time and can immerse yourself in the language of your choosing
    - Purves, Libby (19 March 2014). "Midweek – BBC Radio 4: Professor John Carey, Benny Lewis, Eduardo Niebla, Lynn Ruth Miller". BBC Radio 4. Retrieved 21 March 2015.
    - Gendreau, Samuel (12 September 2013). "Traveling the World for 10 Years: An Interview with Polyglot Benny Lewis". Lingholic.com. Retrieved 13 September 2013.
  4. ↑ Lewis, Benny. "All The Missions". Fluent in 3 Months. Retrieved 5 October 2017.
  5. 1 2 3 Lewis, Benny (2014). Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World (PDF). New York: HarperOne. ISBN   9780062282699. Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 January 2018.
  6. ↑ "Language Hacking". Teachyourself.co.uk. Hodder & Stoughton. 2017.
  7. 1 2 Day, James (13 March 2014). "Benny Lewis: The man who says you can learn a language in three months". Metro. Retrieved 14 October 2017.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Harrington, Katy (26 January 2015). "Interview: Meet Benny Lewis, the Irish polyglot". Irish Post. Archived from the original on 14 October 2017. Retrieved 14 October 2017.
  9. ↑ Lewis, Benny (25 February 2011). "Why my destiny was to never speak Spanish and how I did it anyway". Fluent in 3 Months. Retrieved 9 October 2017.
  10. ↑ Budden, Rob (3 March 2015). "Secrets of learning a language — quickly". BBC. Retrieved 14 October 2017.
  11. ↑ Lewis, Benny. "About". Fluent in 3 Months. Retrieved 5 October 2017.
  12. ↑ Lewis, Benny (15 May 2013). "Hacking Language Learning: Benny Lewis at TEDxWarsaw" (Video upload). YouTube . Retrieved 13 September 2013.
    - Lewis, Benny (28 January 2013). Fluent in Three Months – Rapid Language Hacking. YouTube . Retrieved 21 March 2015.
  13. ↑ Stone, George W. (4 October 2013). "Traveler of the Year: Benny Lewis". National Geographic. Archived from the original on 4 October 2013. Retrieved 21 March 2015. Lewis is a self-described 'language hacker'...
  14. ↑ Lewis, Benny (2016). Language Hacking Spanish: A Conversation Course for Beginners. London: John Murray Learning. ISBN   9781473633216.
  15. ↑ Lewis, Benny (2016). Language Hacking French: A Conversation Course for Beginners. London: John Murray Learning. ISBN   9781473633094.
  16. ↑ Lewis, Benny (2016). Language Hacking German: A Conversation Course for Beginners. London: John Murray Learning. ISBN   9781473633155.
  17. ↑ Lewis, Benny (2016). Language Hacking Italian: A Conversation Course for Beginners. London: John Murray Learning. ISBN   9781473633124.
  18. ↑ Doherty, Niall (2 February 2011). "How to travel the world as a full-time language hacker: An interview with Irish polyglot Benny Lewis". Disrupting the Rabblement. Retrieved 14 October 2017.
  19. ↑ Griswold, Alison. "How to Learn a Foreign Language in 3 Months". Business Insider. Retrieved 6 October 2017.
    - "Is fluency in 3 months possible?". 8 May 2012. Archived from the original on 8 May 2012. Retrieved 3 November 2021.
  20. ↑ Lewis, Benny (25 June 2009). "Defining Fluency to Achieve Fluency". Fluent in 3 Months. Retrieved 6 October 2017.
  21. ↑ Lewis, Benny (20 November 2010). "Fi3M FAQ". Fluent in 3 Months. Retrieved 6 October 2017.
  22. ↑ Lewis, Benny. "All the Missions". Fluent in 3 Months.
  23. ↑ Lewis, Benny. "Hitting A Brick Wall In Your Language Progress". Fluent in 3 Months blog, Fluentin3months.com
  24. ↑ Kaufman, Steve. "My Review of Fluent In Three Months", 24 April 2010. the linguist.com.
    - Barra, Mathias. "Why I'm Happy It's Impossible to be Fluent in 3 Months", Medium, August 11, 2020.
  25. ↑ Demie, F. (2013). "English as an additional language pupils: How long does it take to acquire English fluency?". Language and Education 27(1), p 59.
    - Hakuta, K., Butler, Y. G., & Witt, D. (2000). How Long Does It Take English Learners To Attain Proficiency?
  26. ↑ Lewis, Benny. "Is it possible to become fluent in a language in 3 months?". Fluent in 3 Months.
  27. ↑ Lewis, Benny (2017). "Why Czech isn't as hard to learn as you think". Fluent in 3 Months. Retrieved 14 October 2017.
  28. ↑ "Hitting a brick wall in your language progress | Fluent in 3 months". 17 March 2010. Archived from the original on 17 March 2010. Retrieved 3 November 2021.
    - "My review of "fluent in three months"". Blog.thelinguist.com. 24 April 2010. Retrieved 3 November 2021.
  29. ↑ Wallace, Arminta (17 September 2016). "More than a cúpla focail: How to learn a language in just three months". The Irish Times. Retrieved 14 October 2017.
  30. ↑ Lewis, Benny. "German 3 month mission: Sit C2 exam". Fluent in 3 Months.
  31. ↑ Lewis, Benny. "I'm Fluent in German! Exam Results and Analysis". Fluent in 3 Months.
  32. 1 2 "Did I Really Learn to Speak Chinese in 3 Months?". Fluent in 3 Months. 29 May 2012. Retrieved 3 November 2021.
  33. 1 2 Seeroi, Ken (1 August 2015). "A Friend of Mine Learned Japanese in 1 Year". Japanese rule of 7. Retrieved 3 November 2021.
    - "Japanese project conclusion: Wrapping up the learning part & getting ready to travel". Fluent in 3 Months. 13 December 2013. Retrieved 3 November 2021.
  34. ↑ "Language Mission: Mandarin in 3 months!". Fluent in 3 Months. 5 January 2012. Retrieved 3 November 2021.
  35. 1 2 "Can you become fluent in Chinese in three months?". Hackingchinese.com. 8 January 2012. Retrieved 3 November 2021.
  36. ↑ "Benny Lewis (Fluent in 3 Months) - Did He Get Fluent in Chinese?". Ltl-school.com. 28 February 2018. Retrieved 3 November 2021.
  37. ↑ "What Makes Benny the Irish Polyglot Tick". YouTube . Retrieved 21 February 2022.
  38. ↑ "Japanese project: Reach fluency in 3 months... in Spain [INTRO VIDEO]". Fluent in 3 Months. 16 September 2013. Retrieved 3 November 2021.
  39. ↑ [ permanent dead link ]
  40. ↑ "Japanese in 3 Months?". YouTube . Retrieved 3 November 2021.
  41. ↑ "Can You Really Master a Language in 3 Months? Exclusive Interview with Benny Lewis". HungarianPod101.com. Retrieved 3 November 2021.
  42. ↑ "European Language Label" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 December 2015. Retrieved 30 November 2015.
  43. ↑ "Traveler of the Year: Benny Lewis". National Geographic. Archived from the original on 10 February 2017.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.