#bennylewis

[marathon-des-langues]

Love this saying, thanks #fluentin3months #bennylewis #irishpolyglot 🤙

[languages-and-tea]

MY OPINION ON BENNY LEWIS

24/10/2016

Hi! So I thought about starting my new langblr talking about Benny Lewis as it seems to be a very hot topic. First of all, I don’t hate him or love him, so neither #baenny nor #benightmare. Let’s begin.

I first knew about Benny Lewis when I got very interested in learning German maybe a couple years ago or so. I had gone crazy searching about language learning, and of course his blog and name came out, a lot. And so I read his blogposts and watched some videos. Now, I think his approach can work, and actually really well. That being said, I’ll never use it. And I’ll tell you why.

He bases everything on the fact that the sooner you start speaking, the better, and that you can learn a language so fast. And yes, you should start speaking soon. But no, you cannot actually learn a language that fast, at least not by my standards. So, if you fancy to learn a language because, I don’t know, you just like it (like it happens to me with German), or you want to be able to be in the country of your targeted language and just speak whatever you can with people very fast, fair enough. I think the method is great. Now if you are like me and really like to understand the linguistics of the language, and you do not like to focus on speaking SO MUCH (because that is really his main thing), then you may not enjoy it that much. I, hand to my heart, just don’t think I would enjoy his approach. Now, the second reason why I would never use it applies to my French learning. I am learning French at crazy speed (or trying to anyway) to pass a French exam (pretty much DELF B2) next April 2017, If I want to get into Universitè de Genève to study translation by next September 2017. I studied some French at high school a few years ago, but as many of you may know, that doesn’t mean I learned so much. And I forgot it all anyway. So I considered myself a low A1 when I started with French a couple months ago. So if I were to use his method, I don’t believe I would get the level I need to have by April to pass my exam. So again, the reasons why you are learning a language matter A LOT when judging if Benny Lewis method suits you or not. I need a higher speed plus more accuracy and grammar in my learning (I mean, my tutor told me French people make tons of mistakes when speaking so, even though I need to speak to survive (I live in France by the way), I don’t even have a speaking part in my exam so that is not my main focus. So I have books, magazines, grammar books, my tutor, movies and tv shows, books like Entre nous which guide your through the levels… I even read Chi’s Sweet Home in French, for God’s sake!! (If you don’t know what that is, google it right now; there is an anime too. You’re welcome)

So, probably very messy but I think I have said everything that I wanted to say. I’d say if it works for you, I mean, you do you! But it doesn’t work for me so I’ll stick to other stuff!! Happy language learning!! (And please follow me since I want to use this account to 1. Repost any actual useful info I find here, 2. Hopefully post my little notes and study set-ups, and 3. Give my opinion on more stuff!!

[lindsaydoeslanguages]

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