Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World

by Benny Lewis

The missing ingredient, and the single thing I have found that separates successful language learners from unsuccessful ones, is a passion for the language itself. For successful language learners, acquiring a new language is the reward.

“You don’t know a language, you live it. You don’t learn a language, you get used to it.”

Ultimately, it’s not about the number of months or years, but the number of minutes every day you devote to this challenge. These minutes are what truly count.

generally find the Teach Yourself, Assimil, and Colloquial courses to be pretty good ones to start with, but there are also plenty of free online alternatives.

Use the language, even though you may slip up a little.

focus on one major project at a time. He stays committed to the priority project no matter what, even if distractions may tempt him to try to take on two or more interesting projects simultaneously.

Try to expose yourself to some alternative content in the language—like through its music, cartoons, movies, magazines, jokes, many of which are available online—find

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t—you’re right.” —HENRY FORD

To realistically expect to make good progress in a language in a short amount of time, you have to put at least two hours a day into it, and ideally more.

Breaks are essential during a full-time immersion project. Use them to recharge your batteries and as motivation to work harder to reach a specific milestone.

Discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want most.

During your intensive learning project, make sure to focus on the biggest issue you have and try to solve it, or greatly reduce it,

The app/program I prefer (which works on all systems) is called Anki. See download links for that app and some of my recommendations for other spaced-repetition tools at fi3m.com/srs.

It is not important to be better than someone else, but to be better than yesterday. —JIGORO KANO, CREATOR OF JUDO

You must speak the language with other human beings.

As Saint Augustine famously said, “The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.”

It’s time with real people and real exposure to the language through TV, radio, and movies that pushes you forward. And you can do this from anywhere.

Couchsurfing.org. This site is well known among budget travelers as a means to connect with people living in cities around the world who invite you to sleep on their couches (couch-surf).

Phrases to start with: “How are you?” “What’s your name?” “My name is . . .” “I don’t understand.” “Could you repeat that?” (Or the shorter “Again, please.”) “Can you speak slower please?” “What does [fill in the blank] mean?” (Or “What does that mean?”)

One of the first things I do when I am learning a language is find a list of these cognates or similar-looking words. These lists can contain hundreds or even thousands of examples.

With any language, I suggest learning the following modal verbs: can (able to) should would like to must / have to want to

poder: to be able, can, may puedo I can puede he/she/it/you (polite) can podemos we can querer: to want quiero I want quiere he/she/it/you (polite) want(s) queremos we want tener que: to have to tengo que I have to tiene que he/she/it/you (polite) has/have to tenemos que we have to deber: should, must debo I should debe he/she/it/you (polite) should debemos we should

For more tips on Spanish, see fi3m.com/spanish.

You live a new life for every new language you speak. If you know only one language, you live only once. —CZECH PROVERB

Google.es for the Spanish one,