TMBA356: How Long Does it Take to Learn a Foreign Language?

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Hola! Like many of us, Dan and Ian spend a lot of time in foreign countries.

As regular listeners know, Dan has recently moved to Barcelona and he’s starting to get more than a little embarrassed by his ~~limited range~~ lack of Spanish. But he also has a lot of questions and concerns about the kind of a time investment it’s going to take him to learn a new language.

So, in today’s episode, he reaches out to two people who have built successful businesses in the language learning field, and who both speak many different languages themselves: Benny Lewis of FluentIn3Months.com and Idahosa Ness, the founder of The Mimic Method. They share some high-quality tips and strategies about how to become fluent in a foreign language – and in a way that fits your lifestyle.

Transcript

Listen to this week’s show and learn:

How much confidence plays into the process of learning a language. (4:54)
What Benny’s first six months in Spain were like and why he was struggling to learn Spanish. (8:15)
The difference between learning a language and living a language. (11:00)
The two key stages to learning a language on a conversational level. (24:47)
How learning a language is similar to learning how to play an instrument. (26:05)

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Cheers,

Dan & Ian