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.

I got a couple of Spanish self-study books befor this one, and to be honest it was a slow process. I have been reading Benny’s blog posts (Fluent in 3 months) for a while and I thought I would give this book a try. Can’t stress enough how much I love this book! It is easy to follow and is more of a study smarter not harder kind of thing. All you need is commitment and you’ll read about it in the beginning of the book. I couldn’t believe how quick I have improved since I started! The speaking missions is a great way to share what you’re learning within a community. It’s just that I’m shy in front of the camera;) I gifted two of the series to two other friends. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who wants to be a fluent beginner in Spanish. It would make a freat gift, too.

This book is a great tool to develop an understanding of core Spanish language elements. The author uses dialog & context to introduce major constructs such as verb conjugation, pronouns, etc. I found it very useful as a point to further explore & understand major parts of Spanish. As your notes are more fully developed, it creates a great reference key as you begin to practice listening/speaking, whether live or with Pimsleur, et al. One caveat, however: don't think you're going to magically learn Spanish just by using this book. Some of the negative comments reflect the frustration & difficulty of some who might have been expecting a magic bullet. You still have to do the hard work, but IMO this tool provides nice context instead of just pursuing rote table memorization.

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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