The

Language Hacking Guide

Benny Lewis
by
Table of contents
ABOUT THE AUTHOR........................................................................................ 7
!TRO"U#TO!................................................................................................ $
%a&t '( )entality ........................................................................................*.'+
)oti,ation .......................................................................................................'-
.hy a&e you lea&ning this language/ *.......................................................'0
)aking su&e you ha,e a good fi&st i12&ession *........................................'3
But 4ll 1ake 1istakes5 ..................................................................................'6
The &ight attitude ............................................................................................-'
!ot being bo&n natu&ally talented ................................................................-0
%a&t -. %lan of action ......................................................................................-3
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)ission .............................................................................................................-7
9te2s needed ...................................................................................................-6
)ini:goals ........................................................................................................;'
"efining you& ta&gets .....................................................................................;-
)ake a language log .......................................................................................;<
%a&t ;( #o11unicating f&o1 "ay One............................................................;7
.hen will be &eady to s2eak the language/ *...........................................;$
A language is 1o&e than in2ut and out2ut *...............................................0+
!on:,e&bal co11unication *.........................................................................0;
How to co11unicate with nati,es with ,e&y little lea&ned *....................0<
At ho1e = in:count&y i11e&sion *................................................................<+
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92oken i11e&sion .............................................................................................<;
Getting into the flow of s2eaking i11ediately *..........................................<3
!ecessa&y f&ust&ation........................................................................................3+
Hack fo& getting o,e& unfa1ilia&ity with a fo&eign language *...................3-
t4s i12o&tant to 1ake 1istakes *..................................................................3<
9tudy T&iage .......................................................................................................37
Getting o,e& the %lateau *................................................................................36
%a&t 0( 92eaking with nati,es *.......................................................................7'
>ust ask ...............................................................................................................7-
The hu1an as2ect .............................................................................................7;
Too shy to s2eak ............................................................................................... 7$
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#on,e&sational connecto&s *.........................................................................$'
Taking on se,e&al languages *......................................................................$0

%a&t <( Lea&ning Resou&ces *........................................................................$7
12&o,ing 1e1o&y ..........................................................................................$$
1age association...........................................................................................6+
Using 1usic to &e1e1be& 2h&ases................................................................60
)aking ti1e .....................................................................................................67
?&ee ways to find nati,es without t&a,elling *...........................................'++
Online &esou&ces *..........................................................................................'+;
%a&t 3( %a&ticula& Language issues *............................................................'+7
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.hy do they ha,e to ha,e wo&d gende&s/ *..................................................'+$
nstant ,ocabula&y *.......................................................................................''+
Accent &eduction..............................................................................................''-
nte&,iews..........................................................................................................''0
#onclusion.........................................................................................................''<
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!TRO"U#T O!
When I turned 21, the only language I spoke was English. I had taken German and Irish in school,
but received low grades in both. This meant that I considered mysel totally untalented in
languages and simply accepted that I would never speak anything but English my entire lie. !y
university studies were in Electronic Engineering.
"owever, I moved to #pain ater graduation and loved the culture so much that I decided I wanted
to get to know it better by understanding the actual people rom #pain $ and not %ust those who
spoke English.
&ver si' months, I tried (uite a lot o things to learn #panish, mostly only casually, and mostly
%ust using standard courses. )ter all this time I still only had a ew scattered words, phrases and
grammar rules $ not very useul. Then one day I decided to really devote mysel to the pro%ect
and tried some unconventional approaches never recommended in most courses.
Thus, *anguage "acking was born+
I,m certainly not the only language hacker out there. !any others beore me have learned
languages (uickly too. I have met a lot o these people in my travels and learned loads rom
them, and have even included interviews in this guide with some o the Internet,s most well-
known language learners to hear what they have to say about approaches that have helped them
learn many languages more (uickly and more eiciently than the average learner.
This guide includes some o the most important lessons learned on my language %ourney to date.
In sharing my struggles, I hope to spare other language learners rom the rustrations I went
through to get to this point. Too many people spend years learning a language without even
being able to converse beyond the basics, and I want to help them.
I,m proposing that you can start speaking the language immediately, and in a matter o months,
you can speak it very well i you learn it the right way. The contents o this guide share some o
the many ree possibilities and methods available to anyone who wishes to (uickly reach the
stage o being able to converse with natives in a oreign language, whether abroad or in your
home town.
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The eeling o truly understanding a culture by being able to talk to the actual people in that
culture is within many people,s reach. I hope the advice in these pages .and audio/ will help you
to achieve that dream+
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%a&t Th&ee
#o11unicating f&o1 day one
%a&t Th&ee
#o11unicating
f&o1 day one
.hen will be &eady to s2eak the
language/
In talking with other e'perienced language learners .check out the interviews with some amous
polyglots included with the guide to conirm this/, I,ve ound that some things I talk about a lot
like a good attitude, certain study techni(ues, etc... are common to (uite a lot o eicient
language learners.
"owever, there are some issues we may disagree on, and one o them is when you should start
speaking. &ther people have been successul in language learning by waiting beore they speak,
but rom what I can tell most o them make progress much slower than I would because o this.
*uckily there are e'ceptions. &ne o the interviewees, !oses !c0ormick, has also been successul
in learning by speaking rom day one.
The issue comes with the sense o eeling ready. It,s logical to think that i you don,t have enough
basic vocabulary and at least rudimentary grammar and a tiny understanding o responses then
you are simply not ready yet to speak the language.
Well, yeah... but then when you have all o this there is still some ine-tuning to get rid o your
grammar mistakes and learn e'pressions, slang, and improving your accent. #o should you wait
until you have these until you are ready1
2erhaps... but then you still don,t have an ideal ability to write ormally and use precisely the right
words, and there are cultural reerences like T3 shows and music that you won,t be amiliar with
yet.
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%a&t Th&ee
#o11unicating
f&o1 day one
0an you see where I,m going here1 With the right amount o logic you will never be ready to
speak. The sad thing is, (uite a lot o people I meet are in this rame o mind. I can honestly tell
you that I have come across people with a vastly deeper understanding o how a particular
language works than I would have, and yet I speak more and speak better than they do.
The sense o perectionism that I,ve mentioned beore does nothing to help because you can
never reach it. 4ou will never be one hundred percent ready to speak a language.
When I ask these other learners when e'actly they are ready, I get unsatisactory, vague
responses like 5you,ll know it when it comes6 and I think this encourages people to wait even
longer.
#o, in case you can,t tell, I think you are ready to speak the language FROM DAY ONE. This has
been why I have been able to speak languages (uicker - because I start speaking them earlier.
The way I see it, this is nothing more than pure mathematics. I you speak more, then even in the
same time-rame you,ll improve your conversation skills more than others would, simply because
you are practising more.
&ne criticism o this is 5ossilisation6 o mistakes. #ince you will obviously be making many
mistakes, there is a worry that you will simply never unlearn them and speak that way orever. I
think this is a gross simpliication o how intelligent people are.
7eing slightly harder to get rid o these mistakes more than compensates or the speed at which
you will actually be able to communicate.
In this part o the *anguage "acking Guide I describe in great detail how you can apply some
clever techni(ues to make sure that you too can speak rom day one, and get along very well with
natives, no matter what your level may be or how conident you may eel+
SUMMARY: Get rid o this concept o 5ready6 and start speaking immediately.
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%a&t ?i,e
Lea&ning &esou&ces
%a&t ?i,e
Lea&ning
&esou&ces
Using 1usic to &e1e1be& 2h&ases
&ne drawback to the method above is that it is more ideal or very small sets o words $ usually
one or two. )ter this, when you try to learn entire phrases, it gets more complicated to bring
them together.
I can tell you that one resource I like to use, and recommend to people, to be able to
communicate in the very early .i.e. irst day on/ stages o speaking a language is a travel phrase
book. It,s not a great long term solution, but a good phrase book can be e'tremely useul to be
able to produce ull sentences to e'press yoursel. )nother alternative is inding a small group o
basic phrases online and writing them down or importing them to your phone to study.
!y personal avourite is the *onely 2lanet phrasebook series, due to its wide range o (uite useul
basic phrases $ unortunately, it applies a mostly standard template or all languages, but covers
most o what you might need to say, anyway. These kinds o phrasebooks give you entire
sentences to e'press essential concepts, which you would not get very (uickly by studying the
language systematically to understand the underlying grammar.
7ut how do you learn these phrases1 They are strange strings o pronunciations that may not
resemble your native language. Image associations have their potential here $ making a chain o
images or each word, or e'ample, but it does get to be too much work at irst when you are not
too worried about understanding key words %ust yet and want to %ust say the whole phrase.
#o, the second techni(ue I use is adding music into phrases that you need to learn. 7ear with on
this one+ I,m not suggesting you turn your entire day into a 7roadway musical. .)lthough i I ever
igure out how that would be practical to language learning, I will suggest it to people, simply
because the world would be more un that way+/
!ost people would, once again, use repetition to get these phrases into their mind. In this case, I
do it too, but combine it with music and an association. The three dierent approaches together
give me a very easy to remember sentence, even i it,s (uite long+
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Lea&ning
&esou&ces
)ssociation is important or the irst word8part o the sentence. Even i you don,t understand the
word itsel, try to make an association with %ust this irst part or the concept you wish to recall.
#o or e'ample, to remember that 9ove si trova il gabinetto is Italian or 5Where is the toilet16 you
can take %ust the irst part 9ove .pronounced doh-vay/ and think o a duvet .almost pronounced
the same, as doo-vay/ being used as a giant,s toilet paper, or a toilet made out o bed covers, etc.
)s ar as the word is concerned this is not very useul, because 5dove6 actually means where. 7ut
to temporarily remember the entire phrase it,s a good start, and i you use it or a ew phrases
you,ll start to naturally remember this word as meaning where without any associations.
:ow that you have the irst word to start with so you can snap it out o the air in an instant, it,s
time to add some music+ I don,t mean %ust speak musically .in this e'ample, as Italians may be
more amous or/, I mean sing it. Think o any random tune $ or e'ample 7ig 7en,s chime .beore
the dongs/, or the intro to a song you like, etc. and sing the phrase to this tune.
4ou can repeat this a ew times to help it sink into memory, but it will be way more un when
repeating it with a tune. )s well as this, you have another dimension o a possible association to
use i you are using a speciic tune.
I I did go with 7ig 7en here, or e'ample .o course, this particular tune is used or other bells+
7ut I personally associate it with 7ig 7en/, with my giant,s e'ample, then I,d picture the 7ig 7en
being used sideways .rather than upright/ as a the toilet paper holder, with a giant duvet hanging
over it. #ince 7ig 7en is in the association, I,d remember the tune and the words would come so
much easier, especially i I sang the phrase to mysel a ew times. #ing it with me+ 9ove si
trova... il gabinetto . 0an you hear it1 In my head both the two syllables sets 5-ve si6 and 5etto6
are on the same note so the typical part o the tune its perectly with the phrase.
&verall this may take no longer than 2;-<; seconds to read the phrase, come up with the
associations, and sing it to yoursel a ew times. It will take longer at irst as you try to get your
mind used to recreating the e'tent o imagination you would have had as a child, but then it will
come back to you naturally+ When you get really (uick you can do this in even less time+
& course, you don,t need to actually sing the phrase when the time comes to say it to a native,
but in the time you use to recall it .the 5uhm...6 period that you will now be replacing with
conversational connectors like 5E'cuse me6 or 50an I ask you a (uestion16 or alternatively using
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Lea&ning
&esou&ces
body language to show that you are about to say something etc./ you will bring up the association
or the irst word and tune and sing it out in your mind and then remember the phrase itsel to
speak it as normally.
)ter doing this two or three times you can actually abandon all associations and the entire
phrase will come to you instantly. !usic can be a huge help in learning languages $ I also try to
study song lyrics and sing along, and the vocabulary in them comes to me much (uicker because
o this.
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.A!T TO REA" )ORE/
If you enjoyed this preview copy, then check out more details for getting your hands on the
full version, and all the extras included (multiple full translations, worksheets, free updates
etc.) on the fluent in 3 months blog. he full version also includes the following interviews=
>hat?umoto rom )ll @apanese )ll the Time. >hat? learned enough @apanese to work
proessionally in the language in jus a year and a hal!, beore even going to @apan. I had a A2
minute chat with him to hear more about his immersion approach that does not even re(uire
travel.
2roessor )le'ander )rguelles, who has devoted his entire adult lie to studying languages
and can read an impressive number o languages and converse in several others. Interview time=
A< minutes.
!oses !c0ormick who lives in 0olumbus, &hio, but knows over A; languages, including
many )rican and )sian ones, nearly all o which he has learned rom home+ We were talking or
AA minutes.
#cott " 4oung- my case study+ "e has been applying a lot o my suggestions .as e'plained
on my blog/ over his year abroad in Brance and reached an impressive level o Brench .his irst
oreign language/. "e e'plains how he adapted some o my advice to his own interesting learning
strategies, and how he managed to implement my many suggestions over a realistic time period.
Interview time= 2C minutes.
9amien Elmes $ programmer o the )nki application mentioned in this guide and on the
blog. "e e'plains to us how the #D# method works. Interview time= 1E minutes.
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