Hi everyone, I'm Benny Lewis from Ireland
and I am going to try to learn Japanese to fluency in three months,
from this room in Valencia, Spain.
Did you like that cool intro?
Whenever you see that, apart from this video,
the rest of the video will only be in Japanese,
even though right now I only know konichiwa, sayonara, and ganbatte.
Later THIS WEEK, I'll try to make my first video in Japanese already,
and you can see a new video every single week for the first month,
and then every second week until the project ends.
Make sure to click "subscribe" so you don't miss these,
and even if you don't speak Japanese,
don't worry because there'll be subtitles in English every time.
The point is that I want to share the struggles, failures and successes with the world,
and hopefully inspire a few people to try to take on a language challenge themselves.
So, I'm guessing you have a lot of questions!
Like why three months? Why not just take my time?
Well, at the start of next year, I'm going to Japan.
I want to travel, meet people,
explore the culture, see the country, and experience it
well beyond what I could do if I only spoke English there.
And I don't want to be spending a large chunk of my time
while in the country studying and getting lessons.
It's better to do that in advance so I appreciate the country all the more when I'm there.
So I've only got three months, and that's what I'm going to have to work with.
Another question could be, why the hell are you doing this in Spain?
Why not just go to Japan now and spend longer there?
Well, there's a huge misconception in language learning;
the magic bullet to solve all your problems is moving to the country.
This is blatantly false.
I've met so many expats, and at the start of my travels was one myself,
who only speak English when abroad.
It's sad, but it's easy to find the expat bubble, stay within it, and learn almost nothing.
However, immersion is the answer to truly learning a language.
There's no product I can tell you that for only $499 will solve all your problems.
No, no... We need time with human beings,
so that rather than learning languages, we can live languages!
Nowadays, thanks to the Internet
we can connect with native speakers from any place instantly.
I plan to spend a couple of hours every day
talking with a real person, via Skype.
Kind of like "Virtual immersion" that I can do anywhere.
I chose Valencia, Spain because I like living here, simple as that.
I also want to show that you can learn any language anywhere.
I've done this kind of intensive project before,
so I want to answer one huge confusion immediately.
Is this is scam?
How on earth can you promise or claim
to learn a language as complicated as Japanese
to a high level in just a few months?
Sorry...
I realize the title of my blog and project "Fluent in 3 months" invites skepticism.
But this is not a promise, it's not a claim, it's not a secret formula,
a get rich quick, or lose weight overnight scam.
This is a target I have that I'm sharing with the world as I try to reach it.
I'm aiming for something very specific that I'll define in a moment,
in a very precise timeline of three months.
Because I can only try my best, failure is an option.
And that's OK.
Why do we only have to aim for certain things?
I prefer to push my boundaries.
I also prefer to be specific in my goals,
and not just say I want to "learn some Japanese".
At the end of these three months, I'd like to have the Upper Intermediate level,
or B2 fluency using the European Common Framework,
or N2 fluency based on the Japanese Language Proficiency Test.
I'm only looking to have this for speaking and listening, not reading and writing.
This upper intermediate level
is what I've found most people understand as where fluency begins.
If you think that fluency is only when you're exactly like a native speaker,
then I think that you're crazy and way too much of a perfectionist,
so let's just agree to disagree.
For most people fluency means you can socialize well in the language.
This would allow me to be able to participate in casual conversations
without the other person needing to slow down
or without them feeling forced to use oversimplified vocabulary.
It would allow me to really get to know Japanese people.
However, it's not perfect.
I won't be able to argue philosophy, debate politics,
or pass myself off as a poet.
And that's OK. It's OK to not know everything in your target language.
Even my English isn't perfect.
I've had similar projects in like Chinese and Arabic,
and ultimately reached a lower intermediate stage,
which was below my target, but still very useful to travel in the country
as long as people spoke slowly with me.
I'm confident that I've learned a few things in each project
to improve my chances of success in this one,
but once again, I'm not guaranteeing anything
other than the fact that I can only try my best!
Another question more relevant to Japanese that people may ask is,
How do you plan to learn all that Kanji so quickly?
While there are ways to learn the infamous Chinese characters
quicker than you think,
as controversial as saying this may be,
I am not passionate about reading other languages.
I don't want to spend most of my time studying Kanji.
because I don't see reading a newspaper as a life or death priority in this project.
I will be learning the Kana phonetic writing system immediately,
since a lot of learning material relies on this,
but I think we should learn how to speak well first
and then learn how to read well.
So I can have a later project focused on reading,
but for now, I'm focusing on speaking.
Another questionů How do you plan to do all this?
As I said before, there'll be lots of Skyping.
I'll be studying these books too, but only around my spoken sessions,
I'm not studying in order to speak someday,
I'll be studying to strengthen my current spoken skills.
I'll be focusing on a lot of vocabulary studies with flash cards on my Smartphone
written in Kana, but I'm generally going to try to be an independent learner,
rather than follow some course.
I won't be learning words or grammar rules for some day.
I want to know things that are relevant to the kinds of conversations
I will be having, and learning more as I expand that range of conversations.
But to know precisely what I am going to be doing,
just follow along with the videos and soon you'll see me
try to describe my typical day learning Japaneseů in Japanese.
And finally, I want to share another reason I'm doing this.
The important one is that I want to get to know Japan,
by speaking the language of its people.
But another one is that I want to show you
that there are no excuses for not learning a language.
If you can't travel to the country but want to learn some language,
then just do what I'm doing.
If you did poorly in languages in school,
then realize I'm doing this despite the fact
that I wasn't able to ask the most basic questions in German
after learning it for more than five years in school.
If you think you have to be naturally talented to this,
then I want you to look at me in the next weeks,
and see how much I'm struggling and hesitating, how uncomfortable I am
as I try to get used to speaking a completely new language.
But how despite this frustration,
I'm still going to charge forward anyway.
I'm not going into some magic box and coming out fluent.
I'm going to be working my ass off.
There is no easy way to learn a language but there is a way.
You don't have to do exactly what I'm doing.
You don't have to have the same aims or the same time frame
but maybe be more specific and be OK with being a beginner and making mistakes.
And have fun with it, and share your journey with others.
If you want to follow my journey,
once again, don't forget to click here to subscribe
and also read the blog articles on my website
for encouragement relevant to any language.
I look forward to your comments, and hopefully your encouragement.
Thanks.