Language Hacking Spanish: Learn How to Speak Spanish - Right Away (Language Hacking with Benny Lewis)

Benny Lewis has done what the masses have been screaming at language-learning book publishers to do for ages, which is to construct a language-learning book that is fun, practical, and teaches you how to learn a language the way you learned your first language. Every language course I've ever taken before reading this book starts you off with learning simple phrases that are useful to know (the "Hi, how are you?" type phrases) and spark your interest in the language (you feel "pumped up", like you've already made some progress in your target language), but then the book goes off the deep end and immerses you into the complex world of grammar, verb conjugation, and a bunch of vocabulary words that you don't care about (just yet); vocabulary words are grouped into subjects, not by usefulness in everyday life, so by the end of the chapter you theoretically know how to say every kind of fruit or furniture, but can't construct a (useful) sentence using those new vocabulary words. With this kind of style of language learning, a hopeful student is quick to become exasperated, like they "just can't learn a new language", as the whole point of learning a language (for most people, I presume) is to be able to communicate with an increased number of people, not to know all the words. Furthermore, we see the spelling of words as we learn them, and maybe there are some pronunciation "guidelines", but these guidelines are no substitute for hearing the words spoken by a native speaker. This method of language learning is not how we learn our mother tongue - we don't learn it through conjugation charts and vocabulary lists, but by listening to how our parents (native speakers) speak and by testing the waters for ourselves. We pick up essential phrases, vocabulary when we need it, and learn through trial and error. This is the idea behind Benny Lewis's language-learning gold mine of a series - to teach us how to learn a language in a way that is fun and in the way we were meant to learn languages. And because most of us are unable to uproot and move to a new country for the sole purpose of learning a new language, this book contains links for audio tracks so you can start to fine-tune your ears to the sounds of your new language - and can start experimenting yourself! In summary, if you're serious about learning a new language, this is the way to go! Happy language-learning!

After 8 months of private Spanish lessons (and 4 years of past high school Spanish, or rather, 4 years of Spanish Vocab) I was getting super upset because (1) expensive, hello and (2) I still couldn't speak Spanish!!! I came across this book and instantly resonated with it. Why? It may look gimmicky and it may sound far fetched. But it does something super wonderful that no text book or Spanish lesson will do (at least not to the effect this book does): 1. It will put everything you have learned into CONTEXTUAL situations. This CONTEXT allows your brain to map out that area of language for you so when you're in that situation, recall is way easier. I mean, it's hacking at its best. It's made the language a million times easier for me - it's like real life flash cards. 2. I typed up every script so I could study them on their own and with each one I can feel my recall become more rapid and really, more than anything, my COMFORT with the language grow and grow. I speak it all of the time now, with CONFIDENCE, even if it's just a sentence or two. I practice with my Uber drivers (I live in LA). I speak with my teacher for almost the entire class now. And I totally mess up! But if messing up means getting one step closer to fluency, faster, count me in! This booked really pushed me to let go of my perfectionism and timidness and to just have fun and run with it. I do have to say, being an intermediate going into the book really did help. I was able to just extract the scripts and take from it what I needed while already being able to understand most of it.

Benny Lewis #LanguageHacking book course is a no nonsense, surefire way to learn a language. Skip a lot of the conjugation and grammar and just learn the things you need to know Right Now. Speak the language from day-one, forget studying for a year or more before being able to speak your chosen language. I was actually part of an insider test group for Benny's course before it was available to the public. Benny wanted to make sure that the course was perfect upon release. I learned things quicker with Benny's book than I have with any other language resource (I learned more in a month than I did in the past, even after 3 years of formal classes). If you've tried learning a language before but didn't succeed. Or, if you studying the language but never could really speak it, then get the LanguageHacking course and this time you will succeed. I've learned a few languages since before I knew of Benny Lewis. I certainly wish his LanguageHacking courses had been available to me then. Now, I'm confident Benny's new courses will help my learn a couple more languages a lot faster than I did without his courses.

I really like the reading it's not too long and not too short. It teaches you little by little and gives you different ways to say a word and teaches you language you use every day with someone. This is my favorite language book. The only thing is that there should be audio for only the readings with no english that it can be put on your MP3 player so you can listen to it over and over again. Also there are some things you can do on the website but I can't get to it because it's confusing. At the beginning or end of each chapter they should give you instructions on how to get to the website to do the exercises. Step by step instructions. But I'd really just like downloadable audio of only the readings, with no English.

I absolutely love this book! It is very motivating and you make very rapid progress in a short time. I am not doing all the “missions” it suggests because I am off to Spain in 3 weeks and I want to finish the book by then. The author has many interesting ideas e.g. be “me-specific” and anticipate the conversations you will have and learn the words you will need. This book is not for someone who wants to pass a written exam, but it is for someone who wants to speak Spanish in a very short time. The author suggests using the Italki community tutors and teachers, which I will do as soon as we have faster internet. Community tutors are available online from 4 Euros an hour. The android app is complete junk, but once you have downloaded the MP3s with it, your Audio app should find the files so you don’t need to use the thing ever again. Extra “resources” are online (why not in the book?) and are useful but incomplete. I can additionally recommend the google translate app for speaking and listening practice (download the high quality voices). I speak new words and phrases into the app and save them in the phrasebook. You can export this to Excel later. Two more indispensable apps imo are “SpanishDict” and “Linguee”.

Really well done, easy and fun to learn, plus great online audio resources that can be downloaded on your mobile device. Definitely worth buying!

Yeah I hate learning languages. This book gets my learning style. cut the crap and learn the most efficient words for general conversation. I took 6 months of immersive spanish lessons and I'd give up practising because of the complicated grammar. Now I feel I can get around Barcelona no problem. Totally disjointed Spanish but at least its fun.

I do love the way Benny teaches the languages, it’s not only a language course book, but a book full of strategies. It really teaches you the language and how to learn it. Good for beginners and if you want to brush up your skills. Thumbs up! 👍

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