Radio Enso Episode #43 with Benny Lewis

Join me Monday, June 11th at 6 p.m. Pacific/9 Eastern on Radio Enso. My guest will be language hacker and world traveler Benny Lewis.

 

About: After over nine years on the road (eight of which was non-stop, teaching me a lot about life), I have picked up quite a lot of short-cuts, unconventional learning techniques, and a pretty good mentality that has hugely helped me to learn these languages, and earn the title of “polyglot”.

 

My name is Benny (Brendan) Lewis. I’m a vegetarian from Cavan Ireland, and I don’t drink. I like to think of myself a “technomad” – a full-time technology-enabled globe-trotter.

 

When I turned 21, the only language that I spoke was English and I had done quite poorly with languages in school. In fact, I initially had problems even with English and had to go to speech therapy when I was younger because of it. So I am not naturally talented with languages! I have a degree in Electronic Engineering!

 

My love affair with other cultures and speaking foreign languages began in 2003, after graduation when I moved to Spain. I discovered that learning languages wasn’t so hard when you apply the right method! You also have to stop making excuses that you are too old, don’t have time, too shy to try to use it etc.

 

After finally successfully reaching a confident stage in Spanish, my travels led me elsewhere. Dozens of countries and many languages (8 of which I speak fluently; indicated with flags on the right) later, I am now a full-time language hacker!

 

For more about Benny, visit: http://www.fluentin3months.com/.