The Super Bowl halftime show was in Spanish this year. Bad Bunny, the biggest star on the planet, took the stage in the United States and performed almost entirely in a language half the country doesn’t speak.

People scrambled to Google lyrics in real time. They donned smart glasses to read live translations. People (including myself) made content translating specific regaetton slang that your professor isn’t gonna teach you, but is exactly how people talk when you step outside the classroom.

I realized that what all these people were doing is what I do every single day in Medellin. Except I can’t pause the taxi driver to look up what “parcero” means.

I could already speak Spanish when I moved here. I could order food, handle rent, pay the gas bill, and flirt a little. You know: survive. But survival is not fluency.

Fluency is speed. It’s humor. It’s catching the joke before you need it explained to you. It’s hearing slang in the taxi and not freezing. It’s talking about emerald mining, politics, or a Bad Bunny lyric without mentally reaching for a safety rope.

There was a moment when I realized I didn’t want to become “functional.” I wanted to be sharp. I wanted to think in Spanish without a buffering icon spinning in my head while I translated my own thoughts.

Statistics show that the majority of the world speaks two or more languages, but in the USA, that is less than 20%. Luckily, the second language most people speak is English, but there are still many reasons to reclaim your brain and learn a second one.

My most advanced tactic was the scariest: I started recording myself speaking Spanish and posting it on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Every mistake. Every weird pronunciation. Every incorrect tilde. Every comment section correction.

In the comments, a hundred people will correct the same mistake. After you’ve had it drilled into your head by a digital mob, you won’t forget it. You look dumb in the short term, but you learn forever. This was the best classroom I’ve ever had.

Pressure forces attention. When you know people are listening closely, your brain tightens its grip. Sometimes it feels like you’re getting "stupider" and forgetting everything, but neuroplasticity studies show this is actually when the brain is learning most.

This friction, this "sting" of public correction, is where the greatest leaps happen. Your brain is essentially saying, "Are you sure we need to know this? Life seems pretty good without it... oh, wait, we just got embarrassed in front of 5,000 people. Okay, saving this information forever!"

You remember corrections because they hurt. You stop hiding behind passive study. If you want to learn fast, remove the safety net.

One of the biggest shifts you need to make from the classroom to the real world is giving yourself permission to sound primitive. “Me want chicken. Edward hungry.”

The goal is to communicate, not to impress a grammar teacher or write a three-argument Aristotelian essay. Early on, I tried to create elegant sentences with subjunctive moods and clean conjugations. I would stall mid-sentence, trying to be "correct." Meanwhile, the waiter just needed to know if I wanted chicken or fish.

Caveman language moved the world. Point. Verb. Noun. Gesture. Smile. You get fed. You get directions. You get your phone plan sorted.

Speaking simply increases your volume. You speak more often because you aren't waiting to be perfect. Volume compounds. Repetition builds fluency. Grammar can be refined later; what is needed now is courage.

People love to say, "Just date someone who speaks the language." That helps, but it’s not magic.

Couples develop a shorthand. A glance replaces a sentence. Routine replaces vocabulary. You avoid complicated topics because it’s easier to talk about breakfast plans than tax policy. You joke in predictable lanes. You switch to English when you’re tired.

You can live in a romantic bubble for years and still freeze at a bank counter.

Real growth happens in unpredictability:

When you’re out with new people, you don’t control the topic. You improvise. Your brain stretches. You miss things, you recover. That improvisational muscle is fluency.

Most learners chase nouns: Apartment. Contract. Chicken. But what keeps you alive in a conversation are the filler words. In Colombia, it’s "pues." In Italy, "allora." In Germany, "also." In Paris, it’s "du coup."

These words buy you seconds. They keep your brain greased up while it searches for the next idea. These tiny bridges prevent silence from swallowing you. Silence feels like failure when you’re learning; fillers keep the bridge intact while you cross it. Even native speakers lean on them constantly (think of how often we use “Um... you know... like...”).

Use them to excess until you begin to fill the gaps with actual substance.

The lag between thought and speech comes from translation.

English thought $\rightarrow$ Spanish translation = Delayed output.

Instead, build chunks. These are short phrases that live as single units in your brain.

This isn't just a language trick; it’s a cognitive one. By using chunks, you free up "RAM" in your brain to focus on the harder parts of the conversation.

IIn English, I am fast. Precise. Funny on instinct. In Spanish, I was slow. Simple. Blunt.

That shrinking of identity is uncomfortable. You feel less intelligent. Less charismatic. But it’s temporary. Every language rebuilds you from the ground up, and in that rebuilding, you gain a different logic.

Different languages have different "operating systems." Learning them forces your brain to solve problems in ways your native tongue never required. This is the heart of neuroplasticity: you aren't just learning to speak; you are physically expanding the way you process the world.

Caveman fluency is about moving through the primitive stage without ego. Speak badly. But speak. Use glue words. Leave the comfort bubble. Invite correction.

Fluency is the ability to walk into a room and belong. It’s hearing Bad Bunny at the Super Bowl and being able to fully enjoy it. You aren't just hearing the words; you are understanding exactly why it matters that he is there at all.

🇪🇸 Spain has officially launched its Digital Nomad Visa with reduced tax incentives, offering a legal EU base for remote workers. Initial stay is up to one year with extension options, positioning Spain as a serious Schengen hub play.

🇧🇬 Bulgaria has launched a Digital Nomad Visa programme aimed at non-EU remote workers, detailing eligibility, costs, and the application process for long-term stays.

🇵🇹 Portugal‘s D8 visa is still active, though recent tax changes have made it less of a low-tax arbitrage move and more of a lifestyle decision.

🇹🇭 Thailand’s LTR visa remains available for high-earning remote workers, but financial thresholds are significantly higher than most LATAM options.

Check your target country’s official immigration page for exact income thresholds and application windows. They move quickly.

In a world obsessed with Duolingo streaks, Gabriel Wyner’s Fluent Forever is the cold shower every language learner needs. Wyner, an opera singer who had to master six languages for the stage, argues that the reason we forget what we learn is that we treat language like a data entry job instead of a biological one.

The book’s core thesis is simple: Train your ears before your tongue. Most of us "break" words by reading them before we know how they sound, creating a mental bottleneck where we translate text instead of processing speech. Wyner advocates for starting with "minimal pairs" (words like niece and knees) to rewire your brain to actually hear the phonemes of a new language. If you can’t hear it, you can’t remember it.

The most transformative lesson, however, is the death of translation. Wyner forbids using your native language on flashcards. Instead, he pushes for a multi-sensory approach: connect a foreign word directly to an image, a sound, and a personal memory. By bypassing English (or your native tongue), you stop building a bridge and start building a home in the new language.

He couples this with Spaced Repetition Systems (SRS) to hack the "forgetting curve," ensuring you review a word at the exact moment it’s about to slip away. It’s a technical, rigorous, and deeply rewarding blueprint for anyone tired of being "functional" and ready to be fluent.

How to rewire your brain for a new language

This video breaks down Gabriel Wyner's core principles of "ear training first" and using imagery instead of translation to make foreign words stick permanently.

I went to the cinema this weekend to see Greenland 2. It’s a solid disaster flick. It held my attention for two hours, which in 2026 is a legitimate victory. I’m not really recommnending it unless this is your cup of radiocative tea, but it made me think of something.

The film mixed English and French (basic) dialogue, overlaid with Spanish subtitles (and a Nigerian language). As I sat there, I realized that being able to hear the original while seeing the translation is like looking at both sides of a hand-stitched tapestry.

Translation is the back of a sewing pattern. On the reverse side, you can see the subject. You know what the pattern is supposed to be. You get the "gist." But on the front, the original language, the colors are brilliant, and the texture is rich. The back is just the dull, faded logic of what the front is trying to achieve.

I recently made a video about the cinema experience here in Medellín that hit nearly a million views. People are fascinated by how we consume culture, but my takeaway was deeper: if you only ever live in "translation," you’re living in desaturated colors. We learn languages so we can finally flip the tapestry over and see the world in full resolution.

If Duolingo is a game, Anki is industrial-grade infrastructure. It’s the “Duolingo for pros,” and an open-source Spaced Repetition System (SRS) that hacks the forgetting curve. The interface is famously utilitarian, but the algorithm is lethal.

It tracks exactly when a word is about to slip from your mind and forces it back into focus at the precise millisecond required for long-term retention. Also popular among medical students who need to memorize alien-looking polysyllabic medical terms, for the borderless creator, it is the ultimate second brain for language.

Forget the dopamine loops of streaks and badges; Anki is built for the singular task of engineering your memory with surgical precision.

Reinvention begins not with where you land, but with what you make.

Every place is a blank page. What you write there? That’s your legacy.

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