The Fluent Show - Episodes Tagged with “Benny Lewis”

What is it that you want to achieve?

Kerstin Cable — Mon, 01 Jan 2018 10:45:00 +0000

Hello from Kerstin and happy new year! In today's show, I've got notes for you on what really mattered for language learning in 2017, and how you can make the most out of these for your own path to fluency.

Lessons from 2017:

Best practices aren’t going anywhere
- Ask yourself what you want to achieve
- Get out of the house and use what you know
- Contribute to your community
Getting organised is the key to actually using those best practices: Plan - Track - Review
Setting goals helps me get out of my comfort zone - I’ve never self-studied a language to this level and I can totally do it

The Year in Language Learning Events

Polyglot Gathering in Bratislava
- It was warm, busy, and great to visit this Slovak city
- The organisation was outstanding and there was a real sense of interest in almost every talk
- A lot of people enjoyed the no-English zone
- I gave a talk on how to talk to people and the feedback was very interesting (no it was NOT about chatting up girls)
- Already bought my ticket for 2018
Langfest in Montreal
- It was warm again, a slightly smaller event, and with so many great volunteers and organisers
- Langfest stood out in how media-savvy it was, there was live streaming, lots of web coverage, even a little podcasting room
- Montréal is an amazing city for any polyglot
Languages of London
- A smaller meet-up, great for connecting

The podcast came back this year!! Thank you all so much for listening and supporting us.

Thank you to my wonderful guests this year: Madeline Vadkerty and Marianne Manz, Gabriel Wyner, Chuck Smith, Kris Broholm, Shannon Kennedy
Thank you to our sponsor Clozemaster, and the future sponsors who have shown interest in supporting the Creative Language Learning Podcast
A special thank you to my co-host Lindsay Williams
Please review!!

"If It Plugs Your Gap, It'll Proper Plug Your Gap": Top Tools for Winter 2018

Kerstin Cable — Mon, 18 Dec 2017 06:00:00 +0000

Click or tap here to read the full shownotes.

Follow up on a topic: Pop Music

Bilingual lyrics, Spanglish and Justin Bieber of all people winning a Latin grammy. Lindsay brings up the Despacito Effect and we discuss if that's a thing.

If you love music, check out our pop music episode.

Top Tools for Winter 2018

Here are the nominees - listen to the show to find out how they can help you learn languages.

Kerstin:

1. Clairefontaine Vocab Notebook (on Amazon UK, and here's a comparable one on Amazon.com)

This is a classic notebook for learning and testing yourself on vocabulary. Write down your words, and use the handy cover tabs for testing yourself. Perfect for one of my favourite vocabulary learning techniques of all time, Write-Look-Cover-Repeat.

2. Libby
Libby is a library app designed to give you access to ebooks and audiobooks in your local library's catalogue. So that means you can borrow hundreds of books and even language courses right now, for free, on your phone or tablet. Available for iOS, Android, and Windows 10.

3. Lingq (referral link)
After hearing so much high praise for Lingq from Shannon Kennedy on episode 65 of the show, Lingq got a well-deserved new mention. This app is designed to help you read any text in another language, and it remembers the words you study. Check it out as it might plug your gap.

Lindsay
1. Léa Knows App
This app takes words that you've looked up on google translate and automatically creates flashcards of them. It's out for Android and iOS, and will "proper plug the gap" if you're stuck on how to study all those new words you've looked up, for example during and after speaking practice.

2. Museum leaflets and other "bumf" from tourist attractions near you
Discover a museum near you and check out their leaflets in other languages. Perhaps there's even a walking tour so you can get reading and listening practice at the same time, and play around with the available languages.

3. FlowLingo
This app is for Spanish users, and gives you access to a huge library of online videos from cartoons to TED talks. You will be able to listen to the video and see the subtitles, and it even pairs with Duolingo. Great for Spanish learners who want to add more video to their routine. This app is out for Android and iOS

Climbing Mount Language from Basecamp to Summit

Kerstin Cable — Mon, 20 Nov 2017 05:00:00 +0000

Beware listeners: This episode contains a discussion of a few English swearwords, so if you are listening with kids please skip the first 20 minutes.

And on to what's in this show:

Language Stories: Lindsay has a new podcast, reporting back from her adventures around the language landscapes of cities like Montréal, New York, and more.

Even after 20 years of English, I still don't know all the words. We discuss an English slang word that was news to me.

Tip: The Psychology of Rewards

We discussed why and how you can reward yourself when you reach those study goals.

Language Learning Misconceptions

Here's the list we discussed on the show:

Children learn their first language effortlessly
Younger learners learn languages more easily than older learners
Intelligent people are better at learning languages
Immersion is the best way to learn a language
Grammar study is detrimental to second-language acquisition
Learning a second language hinders the development of the first language
Once a child can speak a language, the language-learning process is complete

Consider: All these ideas and beliefs are widespread, but none of them are true when taken at face value!

10 Polyglot Conversations from Langfest 2017 in Montréal

Kerstin Cable — Sun, 03 Sep 2017 22:00:00 +0100

This podcast episode is a bit like a Wundertüte - a lucky dip bag of interviews with wonderful people who made the 2017 Langfest event what it was. Thank you so much to all of these lovely people - Langfest was motivating, informative, energising, and of course very, very multilingual.

Here's a taste of what you'll find inside the episode:

Could you become a multilingual parent?

We've all seen the feats of Bella Devyatkina, who speaks 8 languages at age 5. But how does that work? In my interview with conference organizer Tetsu Young, we touched on the everyday actions that he and his wife create a multilingual environment for their three (!) kids.

Applying your outside skills to language learning

You might not know this, but all of us have hidden skills that help us learn languages. I interviewed Benny Lewis and Tim Pelletier to find out what theirs are.

Impressions of Québécois

From how to make those dipthong sounds to religious swearing, be a fly on the wall during our French-language lesson on the Québec dialect.

A few words in Romanian

Listen to me try as hard as possible to get my Romanian pronunciation right with the kind help of presenter Mihai. Ooof!

Unconventional Motivational Techniques

Jana Fadness is a polyglot, translator, traveller, and introvert. She shares her insights on the most popular motivational techniques - and how she found her own unconventional ways of making things work. Jana's interview was amazing, her honesty stood out among the crowd.

Special Guests: Benny Lewis and Shannon Kennedy.

Links:

Future You is The Best You, with Guest Benny Lewis

Kerstin Cable — Sun, 14 Feb 2016 20:00:00 +0000

This episode is all about being inspired by other people and their achievements. We decided to invite a guest, well-known language learning hero Benny Lewis from Fluent in 3 Months.

Benny has done a lot for the promotion of language learning, and these days he gets hundreds of emails from his fans.

In our interview, you'll find out:

How does it feel to be the big language author and influencer man?
Who is the mystery man that got Benny excited about language learning?
Does "Benny the Irish Polyglot" want people to say that he is impressive?
How can we share the love of language and stop people from asking us how many languages we speak?
What is the most important difference Benny thinks he's made in the lives of language learners?
Which polyglots and community members have made an impact to Benny?
What did Barbie, Shakira and Beyoncé do to get us where we are today?

You also get to find out a lot about how Benny is keen to be promoting many others in the community, and how even a speaker of over 10 languages can be thrown when they're "hit with another language".

"The people around us are the ones that can inspire us even more than those YouTube superstars."

And what about being someone who runs their own business and travels the whole world learning languages? Benny is a pioneer, but knowing the real situation is a different story.

We hope you enjoy this awesome interview with Benny. Tell us what you think as well! Hashtag #cllp on Twitter, or simply comment below and let's chat about our heroes!

GREAT LANGUAGE-LOVING PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THIS SHOW

Why not see them all at once in the fun Skype Me Maybe video!