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Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World
Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World
Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World
Audiobook6 hours

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

Written by Benny Lewis

Narrated by Benny Lewis

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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About this audiobook

Benny Lewis, who speaks over ten languages—all self-taught—runs the largest language-learning blog in the world, Fluent In 3 Months. Lewis is a full-time "language hacker," someone who devotes all of his time to finding better, faster, and more efficient ways to learn languages. Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World is a new blueprint for fast language learning. Lewis argues that you don't need a great memory or "the language gene" to learn a language quickly, and debunks a number of long-held beliefs, such as adults not being as good of language learners as children.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperAudio
Release dateMar 11, 2014
ISBN9780062346735
Author

Benny Lewis

Benny Lewis would not describe himself as a linguist—in fact, he was distinctly mediocre at languages at school. But now, ten years on, he has learned to speak over a dozen languages, has travelled the world, and has countless friends in many different countries. How? His success is due to a change in mindset and approach—a process he has shared successfully with thousands who have discovered how to start speaking from day one. Benny's goal is to impart his insights so that everyone can see how knowing other languages can change your life.

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Reviews for Fluent in 3 Months

Rating: 3.93290731629393 out of 5 stars
4/5

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Quite helpful really, even for those who are fluent in many languages already.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    To summarize: what you need from learning language is passion, dedication, and people. This book inspired me to re study my desire to learn Arabic, ASL, and Bemba.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Basically, have passion for your target language and start speaking as soon as possible with native speakers, the end.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    One beautiful spring morning on an reservation in North Dakota the lives of one family were changed forever.

    It started out with 13-year old Joe and his father, Bazil Coutts, the tribal judge on an Indian Reserve in North Dakota, as they contentedly work together at spring yard cleanup. As the day turns to early evening concern of the whereabouts of Joe's mother mount. Even if she'd gone to visit her sister after running her errands she would have returned by now to start dinner.

    "Women don't realize how much store men set on the regularity of their habits. We absorb their comings and goings into our bodies, their rhythms into our bones. Our pulse is set to theirs, and as always on a weekend afternoon we were waiting for my mother to start us ticking away on the evening. And so, you see her absence stopped time."

    Deciding to see if Joe's mother has had car problems and requires help, the two of them borrow their neighbors car and set off to find her. Much to their relief they pass her as she is returning home and turn around to join her, arriving back home moments later to find her still sitting in the car, covered in blood and smelling of gasoline. Geraldine Coutts was the victim of a brutal attack. Unwilling to talk about the attack she takes to her bed and proceeds to shut out her husband and son as she withdraws into herself. Unable to get answers from Geraldine, Bazil and Joe are forced to get them elsewhere and together start to review prior court files in the hopes that a clue can be found in them. As Bazil continues with this avenue, Joe takes other measures in his quest to find who did this to his mother and destroyed the peaceful safety of his home and family.

    The story is told by Joe and through his eyes we slowly learn what happened and even more slowly learn who assaulted her and why. We learn of the difficulties to get justice on an reservation. We learn a lot about tribal customs, beliefs and also injustices not only from the past but ongoing into the present. Old sins do indeed cast long shadows. This book is not only a book with a mystery, but a book about family, friends, love, loyalty, betrayal, evil and injustice where a young boy and his friends are forced to grow up quicker and with more lasting consequences than they should.

    This book won the National Book Award for Fiction (2012) and was thought by a few book critics that it could be a contender for the Pulitzer this year. Was it good? Yes, but for me a book should be more than just good to warrant such a prestigious award as the Pulitzer.  It should be great and The Round House for me failed to live up to that standard and its potential. It had all the makings for a real nail-biter but instead spent so much time on past crimes and legal wranglings that it lost its momentum and failed to recover it completely.  Despite the perceived failings there was much to like about The Round House and I'm sure most readers will enjoy it thoroughly.

    As GR does not allow for 1/2 star ratings I have rounded it down to 3.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Some good points, but I found every chapter repeated the same information multiple times.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The first few chapters were more relevant to me than the last chapters. But overall a good book with many insights into language learning

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Joe's mother has been brutally raped and only because she has managed to escape, is alive. As a result his world has been brutally changed forever.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I enjoyed this book. The characters are well done and it was an easy read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Moral evil is different. It is caused by human beings. A person does something deliberately to another person to cause pain and torment. That is a moral evil. Page 253Thirteen year old Joe has to come to terms with his mother's brutal rape on the reservation they call home. A boy who is suddenly thrust into the world of men must navigate the complicated realm of justice, retribution, and racial discrimination with little adult guidance, while his trio of rag tag friends become one of the few sources of solace and comfort. Alone he will bear upon his growing shoulders the sins of a community without the understanding nor the wisdom to comprehend the repercussions of his actions. I appreciated Erdrich's ability to paint the horrible circumstances around the crime that is central to the story without being too graphic, but still being able to convey the gravity of the situation. She draws us into Joe's mind, his confusion, his anger, his frustration, without holding back while being completely authentic at the same time, letting his character shine for itself. The story is unapologetic, unassuming, and a wonderful example of how to tell the story from a young person's perspective without making it juvenile or unbelievable. A worthwhile and immersive narrative. Recommended.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Great book! Pulled me right in and never let me go! A deep tale about Native American life on a reservation in 1988, revolving around a rape case. The writing is rich, vibrant, and full of life! And I really enjoyed all of the Star Trek TNG references! Definitely worth the read!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A beautifully crafted book, and beautifully written. A woman writing in the voice of a man recalling events when he was 13 is no small feat, and I think she pulled it off.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I wanted to read this novel by Louise Erdrich because it was a National Book Award Winner. I was not disappointed.This is narrated by the 13-year-old protagonist, Joe. The setting is on an American Indian reservation in North Dakota in 1988. Joe's mother is the victim of an outrageous sexual assault and has a very long recovery while he and his father, a tribal judge, are left to deal with helping her overcome her fears. The investigation into his mother's attacker goes nowhere until Joe decides to take matters into his own hands. There are several side storylines with Joe's friends, relatives, and community members.Suspenseful, dramatic, and tragic, 'The Round House' has well-developed characters. I would have given this novel 5 Stars but without quotation marks being used for conversations, I constantly had to back-track to figure out what words were conversations! I shouldn't have had to do that! I do highly recommend this novel though.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I am torn about how to review this book. The characters were vivid, the story lines are interesting, everything seemed realistic and believable, even the fantastic parts. But it didn't come together for me. I think I might have enjoyed the book more if it had been presented as a collection of short stories. There were many interesting stories in the book, both stories that were part of the plot (although I wouldn't say this novel had a strong plot), and stories told by characters. There is a strong coming-of-age element. The story is told in retrospect by the narrator/main character, but without any real reflection or insight, a choice I don't understand. If the narrator isn't going to reflect, why have them tell the story from a point in the future? Anyhow, I plan to read another of Erdrich's novels, because I did enjoy her writing, but overall I did not love this particular novel.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    "The Round House: A Novel" is not ordinarily a novel that I would select on my own to read. However, it was a selection choice for me as part of LibraryThing's Secret Santa 2014. I am glad that the novel was brought to my attention.After reading the novel, I wanted to learn more about the author, Louise Erdrich and discovered she is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, a band of the Anishinaabe (also known as Ojibwe and Chippewa). “The Round Table: A Novel” has received multiple awards and honors as has the author herself in many genres of her writing from poetry to children’s books to novels featuring Native American characters and settings.But it is not as an award winner that I would call this novel to another reader’s attention but due to the compelling way in which the story is shared. At first the reader might perceive it is merely a coming of age story of a teenage boy, on the cusp of manhood, living on an Ojibwe reservation in North Dakota. But that is just one of the woven features of the novel. It also serves to call attention to a “tangle of laws that hinder prosecution of rape cases on many reservations” and sadly that this injustice “still exists.” This novel is not for the faint of heart. It is not merely women’s fiction. It is a coming of age story that peels back the layers of the intricacies in moving from boyhood to manhood, a mystery filled with emotions and suspense. It is also a story of parenting and presents the subtleties of protecting and shielding a child, to sharing family secrets, to the gifts and curses of independent thinking and decisions on behalf of one’s family. As the reader finishes the last chapter of the novel, I can’t imagine anyone ever being the same as the story written in hauntingly beautiful language seeps into every corner of one’s soul. It is a novel that should be read by every adult American (women and men) to prompt action, to awaken our humanity, and to stop the injustices to women in our own country.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I found this book a very interesting read. The prose was well written and the plot and characters were well developed. The book really picked up in the last two chapters and I found myself unable to stop reading. Overall, I would recommend this book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    "Walking through the kitchen door, I heard a splintering crash. And then a keen, low, anguished cry. My mother was backed up to the sink, trembling, breathing heavily. My father was standing a few feet before her with his hands out, vainly groping in air the shape of her, as if to hold her without holding her. Between them on the floor lay a smashed and oozing casserole."I looked at my parents and understood exactly what had happened. My father had come in -- surely Mom had heard the car, and hadn't Pearl barked? His footsteps, too, were heavy. He always made noise and was as I have mentioned a somewhat clumsy man. I'd noticed that in the last week he'd also shouted something silly when returning, like, I'm home! But maybe he'd forgotten. Maybe he'd been too quiet this time. Maybe he'd gone into the kitchen, just as he always used to, and then he'd put his arms around my mother as she stood with her back turned. In our old life, she would have kept working at the stove or sink while he peered over her shoulder and talked to her. They'd stand there together in a little tableau of homecoming. Eventually, he'd call me in to help him set the table. He'd change his clothes quickly while she and I put the finishing touches on the meal, and then we would sit down together. We were not churchgoers. This was our ritual. Our breaking bread, our communion. And it all began with that trusting moment where my father walked up behind my mother and she smiled at his approach without turning. But now they stood staring at each other helplessly over the broken dish."The narrator, Joe, describes in these two paragraphs of Louise Erdrich's National Book Award-winning novel, The Round House, how his family has been torn apart in the aftermath of his mother's rape. Erdrich uses this story of Geraldine Coutt's rape, and how her husband, Bazil, a tribal judge, is helpless as a man and as a tribal judge, to chronicle a family's hurt, a young man's growing up and how ineffectual the law is. Joe is a teenager in the story, although he tells it from the vantage of an adult looking back. Erdrich thus avoids the young or possibly naive narrator who doesn't know the significance of what he is telling the reader.The law makes it nearly impossible to prosecute his mother's rapist, even if the attacker is found. She's not certain where the actual rape occurred, if it was on the reservation or not. That means three jurisdictions investigate. Without the Violence Against Women Act, she would have had even less recourse against her attacker.Joe and his best friends, giddy on Star Trek: The Next Generation and comic books, do a bit of investigating on their own. They do find out some information about the case, but in a way the legal case is the least important part of the story. Geraldine's withdrawal into herself, Bazil's attempts to care for her and Joe's coming-of-age as he discovers things about his parents, his neighbors and himself are more important than legal ramifications.The Round House is where Geraldine was taken and the place she escaped from. It is a holy place that has now been defiled. The boys go to the Round House and discover possible clues. But they also swim, ride their bikes, tease each other, drink a couple of beers and gorge themselves on the cooking of a granny. Their days are brought to vibrant life, and contrast starkly with the way Joe's mother has gone upstairs to her room and shut herself in.Erdrich's other characters also spring to life: war-wounded Father Travis; Joe's father the judge, who talked about the weather with a woman who may or may not know something about the attack on his mother; the grannies teasing the teenage boys about manly things. Such life in these things. They not only show the stark contrast at the scope of the tragedy of his mother's rape, they also simply celebrate life that is simply lived.There are other contrasts in the way other characters treat family and loved ones. Linda was rejected by her mother at birth and adopted by an Indian family. But when her brother Linden needed her later, they sought her out. What she decided at the time and what she does in the novel may be surprising. And then there's Whitey, who owns the local gas station, and his white wife, Sonja, the former exotic dancer. She's motherly and selfish at the same time.Erdrich has other characters who have appeared in her earlier novels make appearances or are referred to. Father Damien from the wonderful novel, Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse, is mentioned in passing. And, of course, there is Mooshum, who her readers have seen at most stages of his life. He figures he's about 112 here. Joe himself is the grandson of the judge in The Plague of Doves.Mooshum is a bridge between the past and present in this novel. Erdrich uses the device of having him talk in his sleep while Joe listens. Mooshum's stories seem like folk tales, legends, but they have a point in Joe's growing up and the acts he takes over the course of the summer following his mother's rape. Mooshum tells about Nanapush, who saw how to make the Round House by listening to an old female buffalo which he has killed and has burrowed into her carcass to survive a storm. That Joe's mother, and another woman, were taken to the Round House after being raped, and that the site where their attacker tried to kill them, is this place to be respected, adds to their defilement. It is not just that they were attacked. It is not just that they were nearly murdered. The entire tribe's place of honor has been sullied. The fact that the laws that have come to govern the tribe cannot protect the women is not glossed over. It is a shameful fact. News reports during the last Congress, when the Violence Against Women Act was held up, noted that 34 percent of American Indian and Alaska Native women are raped. There comes a point in the long summer of his mother shutting herself away that his father brings out all the silverware in the kitchen and aligns them on the table in a pattern only he can see, built around a moldy casserole that neighbors brought after the attack and which had been forgotten in the back of the refrigerator. The judge is building bridges between Johnston v. McIntosh, the 1823 Supreme Court case that codified the European/white land grab, and the day when tribes are allowed "the right to prosecute criminals of all races on all lands within our original boundaries". Every small case the judge decides builds toward the day. The novel concerns itself with both this right to be a sovereign people with all rights that come with existence, especially rights within one's property, and with the ways in which women are disrespected both by law (with the treatment of rape victims and the limits of prosecution against rapists in both white and Indian jurisdiction) and by men (the way Joe considers former stripper Sonja who helps him after he makes an important find). There is much balance in the novel, such as the wealth of healthy sex jokes amongst the grown-ups as counterpoint to both the trauma of Joe's mother's rape and the innocence of the boys.Mostly, the novel is about love. The love that Joe's parents, Bazil and Geraldine, have for each other and for their son, and he for them. The love that Whitey and Sonja have. The love that Joe's friend Cappy experiences for the first time with the beautiful Zelia, who comes to the reservation from Helena on a mission to convert them all back to Catholicism. The love boys have for each other when they are as close as brothers and stand with each other whenever one is hurting. The love that knows when it is broken.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Just heartbreaking and completely satisfying. I didn't anticipate even one of the twists. This was my first Louise Erdrich book and I will DEFINITELY be seeking out more.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Four stars. I enjoyed it a lot but didn't find it much different from many excellent books I have read along this line. It was only when I read the prologue that I began to understand why this book specifically was considered to be so important. Much has been written about domestic violence and rape on reservations, but this addresses some very specific legal issues regarding jurisdiction and the ability to prosecute criminals and some recent changes in legislation to help alleviate that problem. Additionally, the author examines the whole concept of what is considered justice in different cultures, and who is responsible for administering it. It sparked my interest further and I will be doing some followup studying of that issue, one I find intriguing, especially since it is not something that is done well in the U.S. in my opinion. I'm interested in the concept of Restorative Justice also, and this novel contributes to that body of work.Thanks to RidgewayGirl for her review which lead to my reading this. If you are interested, check out her excellent and detailed review.Edit More
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    My first thought about The Round House was that it had a strong To Kill a Mockingbird vibe. That's a commonplace comparison, as it turns out. It's a coming-of-age story wrapped up in a story of crime and injustice on a Native American reservation. The protagonist Joe, son of a wise and kindly judge, is enormously appealing: a nice kid, trying to make sense of a brutal assault against his mother and of the inability to prosecute the obvious offender because of a confusing tangle of Indian, state and federal jurisdictions.Erdrich's setting and characterization are rich, realistic and unsentimental. The U.S. government's oppression of Native Americans is integral to the story: I learned things from this book but never felt lectured to. I was mostly really drawn in by the story, my attention only occasionally wandering when extended folk tales entered the narrative, folk tales being Not My Thing.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is one of the best book's I've read for a long time. Louise Erdrich is a fantastic story teller and pulls off narrating her tale through the eyes of a 13-year-old boy. Great stuff and glad to see there's lots of back catalogue to read.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Haunting tale as a man recounts the summer his mother was raped. Erdrich captures his confusion at the time and how what happened to his other changed many lives forever
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Although this book starts off in a very intriguing manner, I am sorry to say that this is my least favorite Erdrich novel to date. The plot seems to diverge in too many directions to keep my attention. Could be my frame of mind, but nonetheless that is my take on this novel. It certainly addresses the themes of the co-existence of the Ojibwe and the rest of the population and the complexity of that coexistence.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book is pure common sense, took me 2 days to read it and it was worth it.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Too much talking around, didn't manage to listen the whole book
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Best advices for language learning ???? ? ? ? ?
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Round House. Louise Erdrich. 2012. The author won the National Book award for this title. She is of American Indian descent and all of her novels concern American Indians. The narrator of this title is a 13 year old boy whose mother is raped. Justice should be quick but in 1988 laws governing crime related to Native American was a tangle of tribal law, local law, and federal law. The aftermath of rape and the horror and terror the victim feels and the effect of this on her husband and son are heartbreakingly and realistically described. I learned a lot from this book and most of it shocked me. It is beautifully written. I recommend it highly
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This excellent book is set in the same community as A Plague of Doves but takes place in the 20th century without all the time hopping of the first one. It combines a realistic story with Native American fables to show how they point oot essential complexities. Most importantly this is a perfect time to read it because it underscores the need for the new provisions in the Violence Against Women Act that the Republicans object to - the necessity of allowing Native American courts to have jurisdiction over crimes committed against their citizens even if the perpetrator is not Native American. This is a very powerful, very well told story.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    One of the better books I've read on how to learn and maintain a new language. ?
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    It's worth a read. I don't count it as a great novel and at times, I was ready to lose interest but I would still recommend giving it a try. It has won some awards so a lot of people with more insight than me thought it was good.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    excellent writing style, coming of age, life and charactors on native american reservation