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The more words you know, the more you can guess the meaning of new words, either because they are similar to words you know, or because you know more of the context. The more words you know, the more interesting things you can read, allowing you to come into contact with more words. It is a snowball.

finally someone speaking the truth. as someone who dedicated over 6 years to study of mandarin, i salute you for calling him on the nonsense.

I understand 60%. That´s good! Thank you for these vídeo. I´m learning English.

Hi Steve. I am British, got a 1st class in German and linguistics, Masters in translation. I have been teaching English in Moscow for 10 years. I have to say: I agree 100% with what you say. I think in a modern world where life is handed on a plate to many, we have become deluded concerning the amount of work required to master any subject let alone a language. To go from A1 to C2 takes years. For someone to assume that can be achieved in 3 months... it's like watching X-Factor where a contestant comes on seriously believing they can sing whereas they sing like a dying cat. Totally deluded. People also seem to completely misinterpret what "fluency" actually means. At least for me it is reaching native-speaker level. But for anyone who thinks your videos are discouraging I say this: If becoming "fluent" were possible in 3 months (in English for example) a) everyone around the world would speak perfect English but they don't and the average IELTS score worldwide it still only 6.5 and b) if such methods worked, don't you think all teaches would know about them and thus use them? And finally c) fluency in 3 months? Can i go from nothing to being a brain surgeon in 3 months? Can i go from nothing to being a seasoned pilot in 3 months? Deluded by a total lack of common sense and believing in all those crap ads to rinse people dry of their money. Just enjoy the wonderful process of acquisition.

Nice explanation, I don't see why people say your message is discouraging. There are some parts of learning a language that require some knowledge of the culture, it's what makes it beautiful, and you can't hack through that.

Benny did fail, he had claimed that we would reach C2 level, but what he was capable of was quite far from C2. I speak 4 languages everyday and I've spent recent 7 years of my life in China. My Chinese level is slightly lower than C1. I can tell that is not possible to reach C1 or C2 in 3 months. And I don't appreciate what people like Benny do. They give vain promises to people for their own marketing reasons. One of the reasons that people fail to learn (acquire) a language is that they have wrong expectations as they hear people like Benny talking nonsense. A few rare people on the planet are able to do things 10, 100 or 1000 times as faster as others, but it's beside the topic.

I'm a native French speaker and I can confirm Benny is far from C2 in French, even if a French people can understand his speaking fairly well.

The advises given in this video are applicable to any area of life. You gotta really love what you're doing and possess grit!

You are my favorite linguist! I love your honesty, wisdom and useful advice. Thank you.

Makes a lot of sense. Can't agree with you more.

Everything this guy says makes a lot of sense.

Thank you Steve! Those lessons are priceless. Grazie!

This man is more realistic than others. I really appreciate the "On your own" bit because that is absolutely true, you can't expect every single native wanting to teach you their language, classes are expensive and not everyone can teach a language so it's better to do it with your own resources, your own methods and at your own speed.

Thank you Steve! If only everyone on KZfaq had your honesty

Thanks for your words of wisdom. These days, with the internet, every one is an "expert." It's refreshing to have people like you who DO have adequate life experience, and not just smart marketing tactics. And as someone who lives in Brazil, I would say that Benny's Portuguese wouldn't be mistaken for a native's by anyone other than a half-passed out drunk.Cheers!

Thank you for being honest, I totally agreed that learning and fluency in 3 months are impossible for a human being. Learning language is like planting a seed it takes water and time to grow it. So consistency and passion are the first steps.

From living in China for 4.5 years and studying Chinese since 2000, my personal opinion is fluent will take 3 years if study diligently 5 hours a day 5 days a week and speak all the time. If you are super good with languages and extremely diligent and smart I suppose possible fluency in 2 years, but I am skeptical. To be like a Native speaker, I say 5 years of diligent study and practice. So many bullshitters out there who think they can buy train tickets and pick up on girls they are fluent. There is a massive bridge from beginner to intermediate and an even bigger bridge from intermediate to advanced.

Steve, your awesome. Whenever I find myself slacking off a bit you seem to always have a new video up that reminds me I'm not gonna get much done with halfhearted efforts. I then proceed to open a LingQ tab and get to work lol. Refreshing my German using LingQ as well as improving my vocabulary is great, but It seems to be a little harder when using it for Japanese. It sometimes has lacking explanations for sentence particles, other then that its awesome for listening and reading.

Your video have been such a wonderful inspiration to me!

I appreciate how realistic and insightful you are with language learning.

@lingosteve Thank you so much for adding it to the description! I was looking all over KZfaq and Google, but I didn't see anything. Thanks!

I was just watching this video to kill some time and suddenly I hear this: Motivation Time with the language Ability to notice Dude, you're right on the money there I mean I've seen a bunch of your videos and I can't say I agree on everything with you, like the bit about 'de-emphasising gramma' - in my book that doesn't necessarily make a lot of sense seeing how studying grammar, if done right, can help you develop that ability to notice stuff that you're talking about but in general those three points really are the gospel of language learning.

I'm learning German with (your) program lingq, and it's awesome. It can show me real progress. Once done with my studies I'm going to try you 90 challenge it's going to be fun.

Hi Steve, I like your wonderful experiences in learning languages.

Whatever your thoughts, Steve is spreading love for something great. language!!! Good on you Steve!!

Your videos are so educational and motivational! Thank you! It is sad when people make claims, like "completely fluent in 3 months", I could see new language learners seeing that, trying it, not being able to doing it and giving up.

Wow, that is great to here. Yes I think LingQ shows us how to become independent learners. Once we know that we can learn, and take charge of our learning, there are no limits. Good luck.

I am so glad there is someone demystifying this relative term. There has already been a discourse on linguistic fluency (I don't remember the website, sorry for that) and what exactly it covers and it is definitely so much more than a mere ability to speak a language. Is it a local accent, perfect knowledge of grammar and idioms? It is really more than that. Apart from other passive languages I speak for a few years (not daring to say a C1 or C2 level still though) I am a native speaker of Slovak and can critically say that the language is so demanding that mastership of my own L1 grammar, ortography and so on is the result of hours, if not years of reading, writing, listening, dialectical shades awareness, communication exchange, context-again dialectical etc. Just finishing my linguistics degree and I guess people are lacking holistic approach when learning whatever language out there. Getting to learn word-formation or phonology could make a language acquision more predictable without memorizing tons of new words. Seems logic to me :) Of course depends on the language typology. Language covers plenty of other disciplines, and first of all, it is a carrier of the history of a given nation/group. Learning a language with the culture of the given country much more fun, than just boring memorizing. Good luck and loads of curiosity to all of you interested in learning!

No one doubts his enthusiasm and commitment to learning Chinese, nor that he is doing well. He is not unique in this regard, but certainly a good model to follow. People just doubt his ability to reach his announced goals, such as fluency and C1, in 3 months.

I agree with EthanWyatt360, everytime I watch one of your videos, I snap myself out of whatever lazy mood I'm in and realize that language learning requires actual work - not halfassed efforts! Thanks for being such an inspiration! Keep the vids comming!!

Kinda glad that Steve has given a reality check to everyone, I have been studying in Hong Kong for the past 5 months and spending my free time learning mandarin. (probably a little easier to practice with locals than when you did as mandarin is now compulsory in schools) Regardless I thought myself fairly committed (I also study a while in aus beforehand) and after seeing Bennys announcement I watched some videos of what was involved in the c1 one exam (to see how close I was to this same accomplishment) and after scaling it back realized I had achieved a disheartening "mere" A2 level at very generous best. I have to say that for all the motivation that he gives some people with his "go get them" attitude he can be equally misguiding to people who are actually learning the languages, particularly if they truly want to be good at it and use it daily in their lives not merely wear it as a badge of honor.

Thank you for your honest assessment on the time frame on language learning. 3 months to reach fluency is very misleading. I fell for it when I got serious about learning Italian (2-3hrs/day) last year. After I returned from Italy in March I realized that his definition of fluency was different than mine.

Thank you Steve, that was a very useful video. I am now going to study

Benny Lewis, the Irish polyglot, I’ve listened to him talking in Spanish. Believe me he is not fluent in Spanish. The trick is that he has developed a, so called, “system” in which he learns lots of sentences, emulates the accent badly, at least in Spanish, and throw those sentences, like in a movie script, and everybody thinks that he is some sort of “gifted” genius with languages. He just found a good marketing technique…A fraud created by TEDx

thank you...for your kind,,,sharing your knowledge to me...i find it useful ...thanks alot brother

Dear Steve, I have tried all the books out there, all the language programmes which promise to give the learner a fluent understanding of the language in a few words, and I only managed to make a little progress with my Russian. Now I am on Lingq and after only a week of using it I already feel more comfortable in my new language. I recommend it to absolutely everyone, not only does it work but it makes learning a new language an enjoyable process. Thank you!!

Steve, thank you for taking the time to make this video! People that make outrageous claims like the Fluentin3Months guy are toxic to the overall language learning community. Learning languages is hard work, and most people want a shortcut. I managed to self teach my way into upper B2 in German in 14 months or so(according to my Goethe Institut class placement when I moved to Germany this year). While I had relatively complete grammar understanding, I found, as you stated, vocabulary acquisition to indeed be the real crux of the language learning problem and no real solution outside of reading with a dictionary and a supplement of Anki/Memrise, duolingo, linguvist, And pretty much everyone who's seen my skill acquisition has said something along the lines of, "Wow, you're so lucky that you've got a natural gift for learning languages." No, actually, I don't. I have a very poor ear for new phonetics and an even tougher time producing them. Hell, I spent 3 months alone perfecting the German guttural "r." I studied a minimum of 1 hour a day, with most days hitting 2 hours or more without missing a single day. I spent 5 years studying Latin in high school before this, and another 2 years before that learning all the grammar of English through sentence diagramming and grammar handbooks in school. That is to say, the culmination of many years of hard work provided the framework upon which I could then invest a lot more time and energy into learning my first spoken foreign language. I'm neither naturally good at language or music, but I've managed to pick up a language and a couple instruments. It all comes with consistent, well focused practice that maximizes fun and value.

Understandably there are a lot of people who would like to learn languages fast, and people who get frustrated because they don't seem to advance as quickly as they had hoped. I feel like Benny Lewis lures people in with false promises and simple formulas - "fluent in 3 months". I fear that instead of helping (new) language learners, he will cause more frustration and disappointment; "What? I can't do it in 3 months? What am I doing wrong!?" Instead, language learners would want people with genuine passion and experience to inspire them, but who are also honest and straight forward. In my opinion, Steve Kaufman sets an excellent example.

Excellent video and information. I think it is an absolute disservice to convey grossly unrealistic expectations under the guise of motivation. Ultimately the misinformation will be a source of discouragement when the expectations generated by the misinformation aren't achieved after months of hard work. Understand what it's going to cost in time, effort and energy to learn a language is accepting reality versus the fantasy that langauge learn doesn't require (nasty "W" word coming) WORK.

Thank you for reply Steve! I've found LingQ through Google I will join to try. Thank you!

Top video! Thanks!!

I searched your videos and found the explanation i was looking for. Thanks!

I am a Chinese,i know the hard points of my language. "3 months" is a joke.

I'm so glad I watched this. This Benny Lewis character has been getting on my nerves for a long time now. I''d describe my French learning habits as similar to your "fanatical" descriptions in this video and I still know I have a ways to go before fluency.

Yes! My point exactly. If you focus on the words and phrase constructions you will use and encounter most of the time your time to fluency is cut dramatically.

Good video, I think that you've highlighted some of the weaknesses in Benny's projects. You are right he does have a good message but it sometimes gets lost by implying things are more easily attainable than they are.

Thank you so much for this video! I have been doing Polish for 10-12 hours a day the last 4 months. Its all i do except exercise, however i am still no where near fluent and sound very poor in conversation, however i try to skype with natives everyday now (which is new this last month). This is my first time learning a language, so its great to hear that slavic languages are harder than spanish/french! I was wondering if i was studying incorrectly

I feel I'm relevantly new to learning language despite learning some German in school. However, now that I'm learning a language for myself, out of interest and a love for the language, I feel motivated. I will become fluent in Russian, even if it takes me 5 to 10 years. If you're passionate about a language, cramming shouldn't be a priority, no? What really clicked for me is after I learned the alphabet and translating words I thought were important (like please and thank you) myself, it hit me that I could read and I was proud to accomplish something like that. When I'm satisfied enough with translating words, I know the next step is reading books and I'm excited for that. I still have a long ways to go, the Russian alphabet is odd at first and my memorization isn't the best. I have a lot translated already and can't wait to start phrases, but I got ahead of myself and can't remember most of the words I did, which seems good and funny to me. Hopefully I can teach Russian in the future, it might be fun. Steve, I only recently started watching your videos and am interested in LingQ, I hope to be apart of it once I get a steady job after moving on with my life. Your videos keep me engaged and you're obviously very knowledgeable, so спасибо and I hope you do some more videos on Russian in the future, peace out.

Your videos help me a lot .. Thank you so much ❤❤

@lingosteve Thank you Steve for answering my question. Good luck with your website and your learning. Hugs from Brazil :)

thank you very much for this explnation

Achieving C2 in Mandarin is a very good achievement in itself. But when compared to a native person who has gone through the social and cultural experience in country and has gone through the school system having studied Chinese history and classical Chinese texts, there is still quite a knowledge gap between a C2 person and a native speaker. Imagine this, a reporter for Associated Press who is at C2 level in Mandarin goes to cover a press conference in Beijing with the Chinese premier showing up. Suddenly the premier starts sprouting off some ancient Chinese poem. I can guarantee you that reporter will be all at sea. Only the local reporters, Taiwanese reporters and some Hong Kong reporters would be able to understand and repeat what the poem was about. That AP reporter will be forced to ask his peers what the premier was saying in quoting the poem. If you want to native mastery of a language, there's absolutely no shortcuts. It would have to be immersion above and beyond the call of duty.

I started to learn Chinese and Thai each 3 months in 2014. But I now want to focus on my English skills 1st. I ENJOYED LEARNING LANGUAGES cause I feel very happy and interesting to remember words and use it to talk with people. Now, I can speak English without thinking in Vietnamese way, and I can make some basic Chinese and Thai conversations. THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR SHARING YOUR LEARNING LANGUAGES Steve.

I really found this video interesting, I'll watch more!

Thank you for a nice video. I discovered it totally by accident when looking up some cooking. Haha. I am a native Czech doing her doctorate in NZ while trying to do chinese undergrad. I haven't really been wanting to speak in 3 months fluently, but ive heard, of course, of Benny. I disagreewith some of the people below. Hearing the voice of reason: i will not be fluent in 3 months and the idea is just silly, is highly motivating. I love studying, its fun, relaxing, stimulating, it makes me see the bigger picture, and once I hit the 3 months barrier, still not fluent, I will know Im going in the right dirrection :)

@Luciek69 I am not Czech but am learning Czech. I find Czech difficult and the Russian that I learned is very helpful. German is less difficult for English speakers because of shared vocabulary. Czechs would have an advantage in that their language also has cases. In addition living in the Czech Republic you would have a lot of exposure to German just next door.

I think it became a trend nowadays to achieve everything as fast as possible. Why not just enjoying the process. I love to discover new words and Phrases. And thankfully this is almost endless. Greets from Germany. I love your content.

Wow! Thank you so much for this myth smashing video Steve. At last someone who I deeply respect as a linguist, debunking this idea of ‘Fluent in 3 Months’ or 6 weeks or whatever...that the language learning market gets flooded with all the time....because people get disappointed and frustrated when they can’t achieve these incredible claims...and then they just give up!...which is a shame..because it’s a beautiful, exciting experience to learn a language and anyway it’s NOT a race...it can be a lifelong task to acquire a language that isn’t your Mother Tongue...and everybody has different strengths and weakness AND supporting circumstances when it comes to learning a language At any rate, it seems to me to be pointless to compare yourself to other language learning students...he or she is learning much faster than I am...they’ll be more fluent than I’ll ever be etc, etc...it ISN’T a competition! I came to language learning late in life in my early 40’s and European Spanish was my language of choice...and although I have visited Spain many, many times on holiday and once for an Immersion Course in Spanish..I have never actually lived there for more than 6 weeks at a time. I am basically a. Distance Learner, primarily AUTODIDACTA..self taught...and when I started learning there were nowhere near the resources that there are these days with the Internet, Podcasts, Graded Reading etc...so it required EXTRA application and resourcefulness and self motivation to get anywhere. So I guess I’m about B2 to approaching C1 but I’m not going to categorise myself...because that sort of thing can ultimately make you feel ‘less than’ if you’re not careful. I just remind myself what is the purpose of my learning Spanish?...and the answer for me is to be able to communicate as clearly as I can and to understand the majority of what I hear or read, and to be able to have interesting and thought provoking conversations and meaningful relationships with native speakers and thoroughly VIVIR CULTURA...enjoy experiencing the culture...which I do and I love. Thank you once again Steve...you are an inspiration to what can be achieved with motivation, hard work and a sense of fun...and a RESPECT for the culture and language of whatever foreign tongue that you are trying to acquire. I love your videos, they’re really interesting and motivating and encouraging.

Fluency means the ability to converse on a wide variety of subjects smoothly and comfortably. Period. Attempting to water down the meaning of fluency is not helpful to language learners. It is just self-delusion. It has not been my experience that focusing on a limited number of words and phrases leads to genuine fluency, and I have studied a lot of languages. Let's get real.

Good video Steve! Too many people I know misuse the term "fluent" or say they're fluent after studying the language for a brief time. Fluency takes years of language training through dedicated study and practical use. I am sure people like Benny are quite "fluent" in daily conversations about the weather, about foods, nationalities, etc. but I doubt they can discuss Chinese history or Chinese politics.

Estoy de acuerdo contigo absolutamente, sobre esta cuestión. Aprender una lengua es una cosa muy difícil, y opino que no es real decir que se puede alcanzar esta nivel de exito en aprender idiomas en tres meses. Y su método de estudiar, sin cursos, casi sin libros, es irreal. A propósito he estado estudiando español durante casi seis meses. al empezar no sabia nada, Y ahora puedo comunicar con la gente puedo hablar, leer, escribir. una obejetivo realisto es que necesitamos en nuestra vida.

I completely agree with you, Steve.

@PabloFrozen C2 Can understand with ease virtually everything heard or read. Can summarise information from different spoken and written sources, reconstructing arguments and accounts in a coherent presentation. Can express him/herself spontaneously, very fluently and precisely, differentiating finer shades of meaning even in the most complex situations.

@usenetposts I have learned over the years that there are many effective ways to learn languages.We may prefer our own, acquired through our own experience, but others have had different experiences. I feel that condensing my hours of Mandarin learning into nine intensive months was more effective than stringing it out over years. To me the most effect SRS is massive reading and listening.

@Taricus Thanks Mate, I thnk that's gonna help me a lot! I'm really glad!

I can definitely see where you are coming from, and I can agree with a lot of your points. I have a lot of respect for Benny though. I love his energy and that he can motivate people to achieve things they never thought they could. To me, I don't think that failing the three month challenge is demotivating. I think that when you reach that point you can look at what you've achieved and say, wow, I never could have done this if I didn't sit down and commit to this. I don't know exactly where Benny stated that he thinks he can reach c1 or c2 level in 3 months, but based on what I have read on Benny's blog, I can only assume Benny miscommunicated his believes (not disagreeing with you. I can only go off of my own readings though). That said, I strongly believe that fluency has a wide range of definitions from person to person. I also think that benny's speak from day 1 philosophy is a very good one. He doesn't expect his followers to randomly go talk at natives. He strongly encourages people to make up scripts that focus on your own hobbies and life that can be used during a Skype call. This allows for corrections to be made as well as pronunciation practice. Your own personal goals are also very important when it comes to language learning. Benny did not care about reading or writing in Chinese all that much. He wanted to speak it. I will 100% agree that you can not learn to read and write in Chinese at a high level in 3 months. I do, however, believe that it is possible to learn to speak it at a relatively high level in that time, when entirely focused on speech. With other languages, such as Korean, I do not believe that this is the possible. It is much easier to learn to read and write in Korean than it is to speak it or listen to it. Also, language learning varies from person to person, and language to language. My boyfriend learned to speak Japanese in a relatively short time period, because for him it made a lot of sense. He wasn't even trying that hard to learn it. This doesn't mean that he can read or write kanji in Japanese, however. Now that he is trying to learn German, though, he is struggling with it, despite his passion for the language. I think that while Benny's methods would not work well for you (because you are a different type of learner), it works well for Benny. He retains a lot of information in a quick amount of time by listening. Not everyone can do that. I believe that for me, your methods of language learning would work a whole lot better than Benny's, but that's because I learn just as much visually as I do by action. I need to incorporate Benny's methods, but I also need to sit down and look at everything. Sorry for this ridiculously long comment, but I thought I would try to explain my point of view. I thought the last person that tried explaining Benny was rather rude. Also, I very much enjoyed your video on learning Russian (I want russian to be my next language after I get a little further with my german), though I can honestly say that the case system and verbs of motion are terrifying!!! Hopefully, after I figure out the german case system, it will make the Russian one a tad easier than if I hadn't learned german first.

Thank you for funny Video! Best greetings and good luck in Study new and new languages! Cheers, Victor

It all sounds good. It is a long journey so do the things you like doing. Read and listen a lot too.

The comment you made about being mistaken for a Berliner is spot on. My great-aunt lived in Germany for 6 consecutive years after learning it for 1 year in high school (Georgia, USA) and 4 years in college. It wasn’t until she had lived there completely immersed in German for over a year that natives began to ask her where in Germany she was from. That’s 5 years of study and a year of complete of immersion. And German isn’t a wildly difficult language!

Completely off topic but: More languages on LingQ please! I find that there are some incredibly good resources which suit the way i enjoy learning but don't teach languages like Farsi or Hindi which i'd love to learn more of.

I suggest you get on LingQ. We have lots of French lessons there including lessons in the French-Canadian accent.

We all have our shortcomings but I believe he has mellowed now, and he is also a great promoter of language learning.

@usenetposts User hints at LingQ are the cached collection of dictionary definitions most frequently chosen by other members. They appear instantly as does google translate. The user can ignore these and rely on the dictionary of his or her choice, thus enriching the User Hints for other users. I am wary of any dictionary definition of a word. It is only through repeated exposure in different contexts that I feel I understand the scope of meaning of a word.

Hi native English speaker, fluent Spanish speaker, and aspiring French speaker here. Just want to piggyback on Steve’s very honest assessment. For new language learners - anyone who claims you can become fluent in 3 months: run away. Don’t give them your money. I see it in the music world too. “Become a guitar shredder in 3 months.” “Learn piano in 3 months.” Don’t bother with these people/products. They’re lying to you. There’s no substitute for time, dedication, and hard work.

I agree, fluency is a very different story. It's not easy like recalling a word and forming a sentence. Fluent in 3 months easily become an illusion especially for a beginner because there is very few word that come to your head so you don't feel hesitate to say or write it. It do take a lot more time to speak and write naturally effortlessly fluidly in the native way, which means fluency. However, Benny motivates me anyway.

No I tend to focus on the skills that I need. I used to write a lot in French. I can write in Chinese and Japanese but only on a computer. I really don't write much in the languages that I know. If I needed to write I would improve quite quickly I believe.

Thanks for posting this video. I studied Chinese in Taiwan for 4 years, at about 20 hours a week. I couldn't imagine becoming fluent in 3 months. Some survival Chinese, sure. But the difficult thing for me was remembering the tones. I had to keep referring back to a dictionary to remind me which tone I had to use. If I wasn't careful and said I wanted dumplings, it could end up sounding like I wanted to sleep.

These touts are not helping us when they tell us we can become conversational in a month, or fluent in 3 months. It's clickbait, and makes us feel like failures.

Much depends on the language but conversational in a few months is feasible for many languages. Genuine fluency may require living in the country but that is also not a condition. You can achieve a lot if you put in the effort.

Benny is very motivated and is a great motivator. I think he learned quite a bit of Chinese in three months. I think it is typical of what many students would learn in a similar environment. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Great video! Thanks! Really what is the point of becoming fluent in X amount of time. If your goal is to become fluent in 4 months, and say you magically achieve it, the next day do you suddenly quit the language and do something else? Is this some kind of language learning race? I started Portuguese from scratch last June, I've been studying every single day for 7 months. I had never heard the language before and fell in love with it when I heard it and then wanted to learn it. I work really hard at it, sometimes I think I'm losing my mind, but the effort has been worth it. I intend to keep at it for the rest of my life.

Thank you!

Hi Steve! It's been almost two months since I have started exposing myself to a lot of Russian - listening and reading, to be precise. I wish to keep doing this for almost a year or two and then join formal classes. How would you advise me to go ahead? Should I be doing something else?

I agree that fluency in 3-4 months is possible for related European languages (as long as you already know a related language), learning an unrelated language such as Mandarin, Arabic, Japanese, Korean, or a distant Indo-Euro language like Farsi is impossible in that time, no matter how dedicated one is. However, I think it is great that Benny works on his accent. Accent reduction makes listening to a foreigner more pleasant, and even if you never achieve perfection, one can always improve!

Learning a language depends on how much a person is motivated. That burning dedire to speak the target language leads a person to do as much as he can of listning, speaking, writing,reading,,,for me when i wanted to learn german i was obssesed by it, thinking only german and i was very keen speaking it with natives even i did not know much of it.i felt that i m doing something great by communicating with them ...wie geht es dir...wo liegt deine stadt...wie alt bist du..using so simple words...that made me so happy coz i could talk german and this feeling will make you do more and more ...until i could talk it fluent at some level in 8 months.but one should work hard and put a plan.for exemple.one book takes one week.should be finished and fully understood it is like a self promise.this method helped me to learn german.spanish.english.and my mother tangue is arabic.if there is someone here wants to practice with me spanish for c1 level that is my skyp samirtengo.thank you

@PabloFrozen If you are motivated to learn the British accent, go for it. Sounds like fun. Find some recordings of people whose voice and intonation you like, and on subjects of interest, and just listen over and over. You may not get all the way there, but you can get close.

I took around one month to learn the basic english(by the way, I had english at school...but I didn't like it at that time so I never learned...(what a dumb I was)backing to what I was talking about...during my first month I used(and I still do that)to chat with people to keep training the english because, I think practice makes perfect and also if I train it then will be easier to memorise, so I put in practice everything I was learning with others english learners..and of course some english

@camilomarmolejo inflected languages are those that change, add, or remove sounds to a word to add or change its meaning. for example, in Arabic, adjectives are inflected to match the grammatical number, gender, and definiteness of the noun they describe. take this "a big man and a big car", the word "big" didn't change in English, meaning that English adjectives are not inflected. But in Arabic the word "big" would change depending on the noun after it (in terms of definiteness, gender, etc).

Imo, it depends on your native tounge as well. The writing system and the sounds your language has, makes it harder/easier to learn the different types of languages. A question, for Mr. Kaufmann, or anyone for that matter. What could you achieve if you study a specific language for at least 2 hours a day, for half a year? In addition to this, you sometimes converse with natives and consume media (radio, movies etc.).

I was just listening to Benny Lewis BR Portuguese video and as a native speaker of it myself I can tell that even though he seems to have attained a respectiful degree of fluency in it, it's far from comparing to a native speaker. Ok, there's not much said in the video to poper assess it but I'd say he has attained the B1/B2 level of the EU Framework. Anyway, if he got it in three months, I'd say it was quite an achievement. Congrats to your reviews on videos, they're quite revealing and useful.

Great video! Do you think that learning a foreign language translating in our mother tongue is the best way of learning or not? Because some people say that is better when you just listen to the language you are learning and others say that we learn faster and better when we just are envolved with the new language. I'm Brazilian and I'm learning English and Spanish. Thanks a lot!

You're so honest!

It's just like you said, everything depends on what one means by "fluency", I have been learning English for last 3 years very intensively, right now I am living in UK and despite that I rather don't have problems to understand or express myself I wouldn't say I am proficient user of English, on the other hand I know a lot of people who claim they are fluent despite that when I was at their level I wouldn't even dare to claim I know it only a little bit. But about Benny and judging from his videos about Japanese you must admit that he got very good after 3 months, it's maybe not fluent but there is not a single person who know all the words in any language, and if someone can get by, can communicate I do acknowledge that.

You are absolutely right about Chinese. I am an attorney and thus have spent years learning a wide variety of subjects. You would think it would not be difficult to pick up a foreign language. For me, becoming fluent in Chinese required: books, flashcards (never left the house without them), drill tapes (I made my own and highly recommend doing that), watching Chinese drama, and talking with people. I don't remember when I started to think in Chinese while talking but it was years, not months.

Many thanks :)

As a native Chinese speaker who speaks fluent English, I totally agree with what you said about "reaching fluency in Chinese." My husband is British and has lived in China for 6 years. I would say his Chinese level is B2 at best, even though I would say he is quite gifted with language. Thank you for speaking the truth Steve, and salute everyone who takes on a hard yet beautiful language like Mandarin Chinese.

@PabloFrozenC1 Can understand a wide range of demanding, longer texts, and recognise implicit meaning. Can express him/herself fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions. Can use language flexibly and effectively for social, academic and professional purposes. Can produce clear, well-structured, detailed text on complex subjects, showing controlled use of organisational patterns, connectors and cohesive devices.

I bought in this idea and really got frustrated. Ever since the quarantine began I studied German every single day. I was genuinely hoping to achieve a much higher level after 30 days straight. I have readjusted my goals since them. Keep on learning.

I have to agree with you on the video! I speak Modern Standard Arabic, the Tunisian Arabic Dialect, French, English and a bit of German. I am working on my German and learning Russian and I teach Arabic & French and I have to say that there is no way to become fluent in 3 months. My boyfriend has a Master's degree in Arabic Studies and has been a teacher of Modern Standard Arabic for over three years and from experience, he realized that it will take at least one year and a half to reach a C1 level if you study 5 hours a day 5 times a week and work really hard. It is possible perhaps to achieve a B2 level if you are at an advanced level in French and want to learn Spanish in 3 months of hard work but Chinese or Arabic or other languages that are different from English, well I have a hard time believing that.