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Benny Lewis’ journey with Arabic | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5261 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 41 of 79 24 March 2013 at 12:57pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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Benny would be the first to tell you- "Do it your way". He's not some sort of "language god" dispensing commandments from on high- "Thou shalt do it my way", or else!". Quite the contrary. What he does, in my opinion is show people what you can do in a short amount of time to learn a language well enough to communicate with native-speakers in their language. His blog has helped a lot of people in both motivational and practical aspects of learning a language.
His most recent Arabic adventure was quite interesting. He went from zero to an intermediate level in conversational Egyptian Arabic, while living in Brazil and then went to Egypt traveling the country, meeting and talking to native-speakers. He had a unique and valuable travel experience that would be unavailable to those of us who can't "get by" in Egyptian Arabic. I'd be very happy if I had his level in an unrelated language in such a short time, even if I "uhmmmed" and "errrred" a lot. That's what he's trying to show people. He didn't learn Egyptian Arabic because "it has a cool script", or "it's such a beautiful language", or "because of its difficulty". He learned it so he could talk to Egyptians and travel in their country. Yes, Benny sells a product, but you really have to look for the links to buy it. He doesn't do a hard sell, with large banners or ads that you must un-click in order to view the content at all. While I don't follow all of his precepts, he's not my guru, I do believe his log serves well in inspiring people to get off their duffs and start using their language in a practical way instead of just "studying". The three month thing, well, in my experience a deadline concentrates the mind wonderfully. Saying, I want to learn a language "someday" allows you to put off that "someday" indefinitely. A funny thing about "someday", it isn't the day after "Saturday". In fact, "someday" isn't on any calendar I've ever seen. Edited by iguanamon on 24 March 2013 at 2:06pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4706 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 42 of 79 24 March 2013 at 6:20pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Benny isn't busting any myths, he's only pointing out that it's just a bit more difficult and will take a bit more effort, but that all these languages are more human. It's not something life-threatening. And there are many things those languages don't have or are simpler, so you don't have to learn them. For example, Russian has six cases but no articles. You can very easily tell noun gender. You do not have to learn many different tenses. (conjugation can be a bit tricky because of verb stems and some weird phonetics, but it's not that scary on the whole - aspect choice is much scarier and it's a pain to remember which preposition goes with the verb, but that's something you will encounter in any language). In the end, those things may mean it will take a little longer to learn that language. The only thing that in my opinion complicates Chinese a lot is their writing system and getting used to tonal pronunciation (if you don't come from a language that has the same phenomenon). But I've learned three different alphabets (Latin, Cyrillic, Hebrew) and those were the least of my concerns. Vocabulary acquisition is more difficult because you don't have so many cognates, but then, you will have to learn a truckload of vocabulary. In the end, you're talking delays of maybe one or two months to adapt to those new principles if you do it right. If I wanted to achieve B1-B2 level (which is where my definition of fluency starts), and I was immersed full-time, I wouldn't expect to take more than 6 months in any language, not even Chinese. In some I would expect much less (Spanish or Italian) because I speak French already. C2-perfection takes much longer but isn't relevant for my purposes and it isn't for Benny's either, he's fine in B2-C1 except in those languages he has used professionally (Spanish, French). In the end, that's nuts and bolts and nothing you can't overcome. And passion for a certain culture drops the barrier even more. What is conjugation but adding or subtracting a few letters anyway?
How easy does Benny say it is? In my mind he's stating reasons why people need to worry less and stop making mountains out of molehills. And there are plenty things in Chinese that are easy. He isn't making any explicit comparison because it's all too context- dependent to really do so. For the record, the toughest language for me is FRENCH. :)
This happens to me in Russian too. That's not unique to Chinese.
A professional evaluated him as B1 after three months, I'm gonna go with that. Maybe he is less good at writing but then he doesn't need that skill so much. And B1 in three months is still more than you are achieving ;) The point is he was working to a deadline. If that's not C1 then it's B1, it's still good result through hard work. He isn't promising you anything, like stated the 3 months has something to do with his lifestyle and SETTING A DEADLINE. There is no guarantee anywhere in his products that you will reach C1 in three months. Nowhere. Nowhere. Maybe there is in the Hungarian edition, but I don't yet speak that ;) 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Zundung Newbie Belize Joined 4267 days ago 10 posts - 28 votes Speaks: English* | Message 43 of 79 24 March 2013 at 7:28pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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This is silly. You're saying noun cases are easier than articles? I've never found the English articles a challenge. I have been playing around with Swedish too and all and saw no big difference there either. Of course as you know the definite article is a suffix (flickan - the girl) and there is a difference in the usage from English (we don't use "my the best friend" as opposed to "min bästa vän".
Now the grammatical cases of Finnish may be a lot more confusing even to me as I can perceive the idea and even use the ones we share (accusative), but it's a crapload of stuff to remember at first. Actually what I find even worse would be the Welsh mutation system for example. But sure. Anything can be learned. .................. Now back to Benny. If the ultimate goal of its readers is to go to the local Chinese restaurant and order a meal. That's fine. However that's not where fluency begins. "And B1 in three months is still more than you are achieving ;)" I don't see why this has to be personal. I just don't display all the languages, because my current focus is German. However I did achieve a B1 in Spanish in 3 months. How? I used Pimsleur I II and III, but went a little faster later on and then I read the whole Dos Mundos book. I tried to be very active on internet forums and played "La persona debajo de mí" a lot. Watched a few movies. And voila. I speak it at B1. Now I didn't have to write this to prove myself. Okay. Now Benny does this. That's why his Arabic is full of eh ehm errrr ehm eh. Why show this to the world? Why not showing a more advanced Arabic later on? But hey, it's not my blog. He can do whatever he want. "This happens to me in Russian too. That's not unique to Chinese." I'm tired of trying to explain it. It takes years, because you have to encounter the right situation where the sentence can be explained to you. Now I could say it's something similar as English speakers using cultural references. If you haven't watched the particular movie or read the book, you won't get it. But you can still speak native like English without knowing who Carol Anne was. You can't however speak native like Mandarin without knowing when to use a certain word as a verb instead of using it as a verb + another noun. ............................ I'm done. If you want to win this fight. Win it. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| tmp011007 Diglot Senior Member Congo Joined 6068 days ago 199 posts - 346 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: French, Portuguese | Message 44 of 79 24 March 2013 at 7:42pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
it's a good thing you believe that. I don't. maybe it was a sincere evaluation, maybe not (networking). all I can say is, he was too used to make things "awesomer" than they really were and based on that, his posts, his reactions and, above all, his videos I do believe he didn't have enough information about mandarin to say most people who previously wrote about that language were and are wrong I reckon mandarin isn't that hard when it comes to tones, or at least they aren't that important at first, and some people do exaggerate saying it's worst than it really is, kinda scare tactics, but still I don't find very useful going from one extreme to the other, specially if the info comes from a newcomer trying to get more web traffic using "awesomer" words 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 45 of 79 24 March 2013 at 8:05pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4706 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 46 of 79 24 March 2013 at 8:22pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
I was not thinking about Swedish but about other tonal languages such as Thai. In that case you might be familiar with the concept of tone, even though you might need some adjustment to the Chinese version.
Jesus christ you are a terrible reader. No, what I am saying is that even if there are things that are more complicated in any language there are also things that are simpler. (no articles = simple). That doesn't equate them in any sense, usually complicated things in one are made up for by simpler things in another area. That is not a statement on whether articles are complicated to understand.
Not familiar with Welsh. I know some Breton however and the only difference between mutations and conjugations is that you change a word at the beginning and not at the end. It's still just one letter you change, why is it harder to memorise that the first letter changes than that the last letter changes (and furthermore usually to some phonetic rule such as voicing, devoicing, or spirantization...) Nope, not a big deal. Sure it takes some getting used to, but it also takes getting used to using Ubuntu instead of Linux or playing bass guitar instead of the guitar. What's the difference again? ..................
B1 is more than tourist level. I can do a lot with my B1-B2 Russian. I can do a lot with my B2 French. B1 is pretty conversational, actually.
Because he is tracking his improvement on his blog this way. He is showing that fluency is not a magic thing but you achieve it step by step.
Really? People have suddenly become dumb and making a grammar mistake now leads to natives saying error error does not compute? Edited by tarvos on 24 March 2013 at 8:32pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Zundung Newbie Belize Joined 4267 days ago 10 posts - 28 votes Speaks: English* | Message 47 of 79 24 March 2013 at 9:19pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
You always take my words out of context. I didn't learn Welsh, but the mutation changes the first consonant sound and it seemed a little bit complicated the first and last day I was reading about it. You can get used to it. I didn't say B1 is a tourist level. But many of Benny's readers want to achieve similar goals. Only to communicate and then move on to something else. On the other hand. I don't think he's B1 in Mandarin. And I don't think he's C2 in Spanish or French. "A professional evaluated his level" - Yes. And I played for FC Barcelona. And finally. I was only trying to prove a point about the Chinese grammar. But again and again you ignore the facts. As a non-speaker of Chinese, you may find his progress amazing. But you don't hear him repeating the same 100 words over and over. You're B1-B2 in Russian? Congrats. You're better than me. But now I see why you said that thing about the Russian grammar. B2 isn't advanced fluency. Good luck EDIT: This thread is nothing but OT. It should get locked or something. Edited by Zundung on 24 March 2013 at 9:20pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4714 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 48 of 79 24 March 2013 at 9:42pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||||||||
No, it should not, because YOU are one of the people making it this way. I created the thread to discuss about his mission with Arabic, not the 3 months title or the Chinese one. You haven't commented one single line on the Arabic mission, so instead of closing the thread, you should discuss about it's theme or just leave, deleting your posts on your way out. Edited by fabriciocarraro on 24 March 2013 at 9:42pm 8 persons have voted this message useful |
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