Fluent in 3 Months audiobook

Fluent in 3 Months is a self help guide for anyone who aspires to speak more than one language.Though it's mainly filled with common sense ideas, I liked how the author, Benny Lewis, put it all together.Lewis begins by sharing his own life experience with readers- that he felt he failed in his early attempts to learn another language through the traditional method of high school class. He also details how he spent six months in Spain with the idea that he'd absorb language like a sponge but then didn't learn any Spanish.The reasons why he feels like he was unsuccessful, because he was lacking the passion to learn and also didn't speak the language to native speakers, are his main suggestions for language learning in this book."When it comes to language learning, there is no room for doubt: you decide your own success." pg 24Beyond those two main tips, Lewis shares shortcuts for learning tons of vocabulary quickly (visualization methods) and practicing immersion without going to the actual country. The latter, as he points out, has been made much easier since technology has brought distant countries into the comfort of your own home.Through Skype calls or internet programs or even Netflix, language learners can interact with and immerse themselves in their target language."You must speak the language with other human beings." pg 87The task facing language learners has now become putting in the work to do so rather than traveling the distance for the opportunity.I think Lewis is on to something with his insistence on speaking your target language from the start."As a result of speaking the language right away, students start to acquire the language rather than learn it as they would other academic subjects." pg 6I have a friend who's niece majored in Spanish. But when they visited Spain together, she lacked the confidence to speak it when ordering dinner.If, from the first stages, learners were able to clear that initial hurdle, day-to-day use, and the successive ones of perfectionism or uncertainty, I agree that the whole language learning process would flow more easily.Because, as Lewis points out, language is meant for communication with others. We're rather missing the point if we acquire skills on paper that can't be put to real life use.Highly recommended for language learners of any age.

I don't think I had ever called a non-fiction book perfect but this one deserves it. While it's primarily aimed at a slightly different demographic to mine (namely, monolingual adults who had either not been successful so far in learning a second language or had not even tried to do so), I think this made me appreciate the advice that Benny Lewis gives even more.A little bit about my background - my mother tongue is Polish and it had been my primary language for the first 19 years of my life. I started learning English as a second language around the age of 4 or 5 and ultimately became bilingual at 20 when I moved abroad to study at an English speaking university. Since then, for the past 8 years, English has been my primary language. I've been also learning French and German and I'm at about B2/C1 and B1/B2 level in those respectively. I picked up Fi3M after falling into a bit of a slump in my language learning as I wanted to rekindle my passion for it and luckily the publication of the book coincided with my starting a 90-day (so 3 months, hah! ;) ) "Add 1 Challenge" to learn Italian.One thing that struck me immediately is that Benny's approach to language learning is something that I had spontaneously accidentally tried for the first time just a few weeks before I picked up the book. Until that time I had always followed the "default" structured approach of taking language classes either in school or privately and to be honest it suited me just fine. But due to a series of events I was suddenly put in a situation where I had to talk in Italian at a Language Exchange event with pretty much no prior knowledge of the language (I had had 4 or 5 informal classes in it some 15 years ago and had played a few rounds of an Italian course on Memrise for fun). Relying hugely on body language and my French vocabulary I was greatly surprised how far it got me. So when Benny talked in his book about how people often give the "I'm not ready to start speaking the language" excuse but really should just go ahead and try, I was vigorously nodding in approval.In fact, the whole chapter dedicated to language learning myths was one of the highlights of the book for me. I remember how as an eager teenager I was learning 3 foreign languages and was making good progress in all of them but around me I had people who barely knew a second language but would offer a ton of pseudoadvice based on those myths. In retrospect I can see that it was not even advice at all but quite a malicious way to bring others down and excuse themselves for not trying to learn. One of my "favourites" had been a mix of Benny's 11 - Perfect Mastery Is Impossible and 14 - I'll Always Have an Accent. It was almost cathartic to read these two passages (emphasis mine):When people think that speaking a language means nothing less than being able to debate Kantian philosophy, with no accent or hesitations, then it can indeed feel like it would take decades to be able to say that you can actually speak a language. (...) I don't now about you, but my English isn't perfect. I hesitate when I'm nervous, I forget precisely the right word every now and again, and there are plenty of topics I'm uncomfortable talking about. Applying higher standards to your target language than you would to your native language is overkillWay too much emphasis is put on speaking with no accent, as if being a spy is the ultimate point of your language project rather than communicating with other human beingsI don't think I ever believed in either of those "arguments" myself but I had had them thrown at me so many times by others that I wish I had had the clarity of mind to respond in the way Benny does. As much as I wish I had the language skills of a writer or an orator, I do not. And, frankly, I don't even want it enough to be willing to put in work to acquire them in any language, including Polish, although I do always strive to improve, even when reaching mastery level.Regarding the accent, two things should be mentioned. One is exactly what Benny says - becoming a spy is rarely the reason people learn the language so there's no need to be discouraged by an imperfect accent; but also - it's not impossible. One other profession where accent could be detrimental is acting and as an amateur actress myself I have put considerable effort into reducing my accent in English with very good results. Not quite perfect yet but I actually know people who had started learning a language as an adult and do not have an accent so I'm not discouraged by this and keep on working as it is an important skill for me to achieve. Also, just think about the diversity of English accents and all the actors who can convincingly play a different nationality (an example that immediately jumps to my mind is Hugh Laurie - a British actor who played Dr House) - learning a completely different accent is definitely within human capabilities.Also, although at one point Benny quotes Richard Simcott saying that he has "never met someone who has learned a language as an adult who could pass as a native speaker all of the time, even though the person definitely could some of the time." I'd like to say that I'm not entirely sure I'd be able to pass for a native Polish speaker all the time (and if you think I'm exaggerating or saying it just for a laugh - ask my husband who is Polish and keeps correcting my language all the time) - and we're back to the argument about applying higher standards for the target language.I have elaborated on this one point but the book is full of little observations and pieces of advice that are true gems and I could write a similar essay on each of them. For the sake of brevity I won't (yeah, don't laugh, I do realise how long this review is already) but to give you a little bit more of the taste of the book I'll just quickly mention a few other highlights:- Benny's spot-on response to the ubiquitous "Aren’t Adult Language Learners at a Disadvantage?" which is another of my pet peeves (no, you actually get better at learning languages with experience and "[a]lso, keep in mind that babies and young children effectively have full-time teachers—their parents—who laugh at their mistakes (thinking they are cute), have almost infinite patience, and are overjoyed at every success. Imagine if an adult could find a native speaker so motivated to help!")- the question of fluency vs mastery - it's been covered in many other reviews so I won't dwell on it but there are some very interesting points made there- hyperpolyglotism and how to achieve it, complete with a discussion on why you shouldn't aim for it- plus a ton of advice on the actual learning process.All in all, I cannot recommend this book enough!

Disclaimer: The book title is not a promise – it's a challenge. And I really enjoy that.It's a book on learning languages. It's a relatively short one and an easy one to read. It does not make any outlandish claims. Here are my main takeaways:* Your age does not affect learning a language that much. You may not be able to nail the accent, but you can still learn a new language fluently above 20.* There is no language gene – everybody can learn a language if they want to.* You need to be passionate about learning a language. It won't work any other way.* Speak from day one. Reading and listening is all fine, but you should not feel embarrassed to try using what you've learned – native speakers will not mind; even better – they will really enjoy you trying and they will go out of their way to help you.* Hard work is required. There are no shortcuts and no "spend 15 minutes every day".The book is full of practical advice how to pick up a new language. It has many tricks that might or might not work for you, but that are useful to learn. I had the opportunity to try a few of those while I was abroad for a couple of days and I was really pleased.If nothing else, the writing is very enthusiastic and it's a great book to get you excited about picking up a new language.

Absolutely fantastic introductory book for learning a new language. While Benny won't actually *teach* you a language in this book (though ch. 6 has some good tips for some popular ones), he will give you a solid method for learning and help you squash any excuses you might have.Coming from someone who tried to learn Spanish in the past using traditional methods (and failed), I can say confidently that Fluent in 3 Months is an excellent starting point for any language learning project. A more in-depth version of this review can be found on my blog.

3.5 stars, rounded up. Fluent in Three Months begins with a disclaimer, which states that one can only achieve the titular promise under certain very specific circumstances. Well, that’s a bummer. Other than that, the author explains very well the importance of an incentive which makes the learning more satisfying, such as a friend who uses your target language. The importance of being able to speak the language with another person cannot be overstated. Personal motivation is closely related and also hugely impacts your rate of learning. The book is a short, easy read with some really useful information. The main negative is his chapter on the basics of different languages. It was tiresome and unhelpful. The author does a good job, however, of giving suggestions for accomplishing the seemingly difficult goal of finding a way to practice your target language.

As a lover of languages, this caught my eye one day while in the library. IS IT REALLY POSSIBLE?Well, yes and no. Lewis spends a bit of time trying to define “fluent,” which can be a fuzzy definition. He points out that specialized language in your native tongue is something you wouldn’t understand if you weren’t a specialist in that field.He also talks about his past language learning experiences, and admits that he can learn languages so quickly because of his past experience learning other languages. My hopes were dashed.Nonetheless, it was an informative guide for learning languages. There were great tips on tools to use, from apps, websites, and language exchanges with native speakers. The biggest point is that you have to be passionately committed to learning, doing whatever it takes to immerse yourself. It also left me feeling inspired to learn with a new can-do attitude.

The "Fluent in 3 months" title seems like a marketing hook, not a real goal. But the book itself is full of technics and approaches enough to highly recommend it to anyone who's going to learn foreign languages. The main approach is "Speak first!", also I found very useful special tricks about talking to strangers in another country and the list of conversational connectors in the end of this book.

A short disclaimer: This review is based on the UK edition, which has a different cover and the title "Fluent in 3 Months: The simplest way to learn any language". Only the US edition was available on this site though at the time of reviewing. That said, there shouldn't be many differences if any between the two. Benny Lewis has been blogging about his life as a Polyglot (someone who can speak multiple languages to various degrees) for several years now. His site Fluentin3months started out as a way for him to document his travels and his progress in learning different languages as he went. Eventually it evolved to include guides, tips and tricks, videos from guest speakers and forums for anyone interested in learning and speaking languages.This book takes all of Lewis' experience and the best bits of his site and condenses it in to a relatively small and easy to read book. His enthusiasm for "living a language" is obvious and infectious, and it definitely renewed my interest in starting up learning Czech again. For this alone I recommend this book to anyone interested but perhaps a bit wary of learning a new language. Many people (myself included) convince ourselves with various reasons that we are simply unable to learn a new language - we're too old, we're not smart enough, we don't have the "language gene". An entire chapter of this book is dedicated to looking at 20 of the most common excuses Lewis has come across, and why they're all completely unfounded (or at least, not as bad as we make out)! Every chapter is inspirational in some way, and ultimately one of the biggest reasons people fail at learning a language is they hit a barrier and get discouraged. This book is a good remedy for combating this and pushes you to work harder!Regarding the tips and advice he gives, Lewis suggests a very active way of learning where we speak the language from day one. He spends some time discussing how the traditional school method of learning a language is actually highly ineffective for most people, and argues that you need to have the right motivations for wanting to learn a language. With the right motivation, with clear objectives, and most of all with a passion for a language, he claims that learning a language within 3 months is quite achievable for even the busiest of people.To be clear, when Lewis uses the term "learn a language fluently within 3 months", he actually has a very specific definition of fluent that he describes in detail. In fact, he spends much of one chapter discussing the term 'fluent' and how most of us put unrealistic expectations on the word. Before I read this book, I thought the word "fluent" synonymous with "mastery of the language", the ability to speak about anything comfortably in your target language. I can't even do that in English though - there are plenty of topics and words that I don't know about, and this is my first/primary language! Fluent really only means being able to speak clearly about what you want to talk about - and the amount of words required for that (depending on what it is you want to talk about) is actually quite small. Every chapter ends with a small conclusion and a web address leading to pages on his website that are of relevance to the topics discussed and contain further information. It is this which has allowed the book to remain so short despite the wide variety of topics discussed. Rather than making the book feel "half baked" or somehow a con to get more traffic to his website however, I personally felt I got enough information about each topic I was interested in within the book. The option to learn more, at least for me, felt like a nice addition, and even if it does bring more traffic to his site I do not think that is a bad thing, as his site is very good! For readers wanting a generalized and condensed book, with the option of learning more if they choose to, I'd highly recommend this book. It's short and enjoyable to read, gives a lot of good advice, tips, and suggestions on how best to improve at each stage of your journey. I would even recommend the book for more determined language learners, as there are a LOT of posts on his website and this book does a good job of summarizing the most important ones. Overall I had a good time reading this and feel a lot more enthusiastic and optimistic about renewing my Czech - and for a language book, that should be exactly the kind of outcome you want!

Large dose of inspiration with some solid tips. Of course, the real advice is "Work your butt off in those 3 months"---it's not "how to learn a language without effort," but rather how to focus that effort on things that'll pay off best in a short dedicated time.My favorite tip: Only have one side project. If you want to learn a language quickly, then that should be your *only* project, outside of work & family commitments. Don't also start projects to learn the banjo, lose weight, and read the encyclopedia all at the same time. (Same tip applies to any other side project, really: best done one at a time.)The other major tip is specific to language-learning: Work on your spoken language first, not reading / writing or listening. Along with that, set sensible goals (an appropriate "fluency" level goal for your overall timeframe; weekly mini-missions to focus on improving your weak spots). Aim for adequate conversational skills, not perfect grammar and no accent. If you can make yourself understood, even with the help of gestures and rewording (and patience from the other speaker), that's (1) a seriously practical success and (2) a great feeling that'll motivate you better than passing a grammar test. Pick a language because you want to speak to people in it, and then speak to them from day 1, even before you "feel ready."Other tips I found interesting:* p.94: Look into InterNations.org ? He describes it like a Meetup for international folks, but I can't quite tell what they are from their website.* p.114: Nice to see he advises something I tried to do when I taught Polish: Instead of conjugating future tense verbs (like "I will travel"), you can get by with things like "I want" + infinitives like "to travel". Then you can memorize just the infinitive for most verbs, plus full conjugation of just a few specific verbs like want, can, need, go.* p.180: Traditional courses do have a place, but it's *after* you've reached at least a basic conversational level. At that point, you'll have built up enough vocab and other scaffolding that the grammar rules etc. will actually make sense instead of putting you to sleep.* p.190: Don't fool yourself by thinking that multitasking (listening while you drive or jog) is study time. It can be prep time, hearing something in the background once before you go back through it more slowly with focus later. But it's not the same as actually focusing in the moment.* p.195: As much as you can, think and even speak out loud to yourself in the language. The kinds of things you think as you go about your day are mostly the kinds of vocab and phrases you'll probably need to chat with friends & family anyway. So you may as well practice in your head, and it'll help you discover your gaps before they come up in conversations.* p.242: Really nice list of "conversational connectors"---phrases that are handy to memorize, to keep the conversation going while you think of what to actually say. "To tell you the truth..." "Thanks for asking..." "Let me ask you..." They are fillers, but they make it feel more like a real conversation (which is the whole point, right?) even before you can contribute very much real content.* p.248: "The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is now."

I found this book extremely easy to read. The author has a great style that makes insight to language learning flow effortlessly. Packed with great advice and resources, and written in a casual friendly style, this is a great read for anyone looking for useful advice on learning a second language (or multiple languages if that is your preference). In my efforts to learn Spanish, I've picked up several resource/advice books. In my opinion, this has been the best one I've discovered so far.

It's good to know that there are so many people who are passionate about languages, travelling and other cultures the way you do, and reading this book was encouraging enough as it showed me how can someone live up to that. The book is also very helpful, and it made me realize some of the mistakes I've been doing, and avoid some more in the future.

El que llegue a este libro y espere que el título sea una promesa que se cumplirá, tiene muchas expectativas y está meando fuera del tiesto. Benny Lewis, un políglota (si le podemos decir así) ue comparte sus experiencias de aprendizaje de idiomas en internet, recopiló las lecciones más valiosas de su vida y las puso en un libro. Debo decir, está lleno de ideas, técnicas y consejos que toda persona que quiera hablar un segundo o tercer idioma puede aplicar. Sus consejos son realmente valiosos, pero inútiles si usted no es de lo que pone el compromiso y sigue las instrucciones al pie de la letra. Fluent in 3 months no hará de usted un C1 en 3 meses, pero le dará las bases para entender y comunicarse primitivamente, o más, si es de los que se obsesiona con el idioma. Como en toda guía, el 90% del trabajo está en el lector y aprendiz, más que en el maestro. Recomiendo a los amantes de los idiomas echarle un vistazo, hay referencias y consejos que jamás se me hubiesen ocurrido.

The title might be off putting because it sounds like a marketing tactic, but it's not meant to be a promise. It's more of a goal, and the author clearly defines "fluency" for the purposes of the goal. It might not be what you think. Anyway, this book was a challenge tip me to brush up my Russian, and I'm following his various tips to do so. I think his ideas are spot on pedagogically: in fact, his listen and experience first approach with the grammar following the speaking is very reminiscent of the Kodaly methodology I use for my day job. Once I've refreshed my Russian and worked it back up to fluent or more, I'm going to use his methods to tackle Chinese and Spanish. Why? These are the two languages I'm most likely to encounter on a given day, which means plenty of opportunities to implement his first and most important role: speak your target language right away, every day.

So speaking another language is a goal. A bucket list item, etc…. Which is exactly what Benny cautions against (wrong motives) But rather a goal to communicate/connect with others. Seem like my goal is wrong, and/or not conducive to maximum commitment to the effort.His method makes sense of “total immersion” to saturate and force you to adapt/learn quickly. I love the idea, but it does seem a required commitment to focus on JUST learning the language is required. Which is not possible for me.My girls are both taking Spanish in the fall and so we may attempt a Spanish only environment around the house as we ALL attempt to learn at the same time.More of his tips of memorization and practice make sense and would seem to help get you using the language ASAP. I may re-read this again in the fall and a better situation to commit the time needed.

Pretty solid. Interesting take on learning languages, especially useful for beginners or those who (like me) find themselves stalled. The advice on mnemonics for vocabulary learning I found particularly useful.