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Ziad Fazah | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| translator2 Senior Member United States Joined 6921 days ago 848 posts - 1862 votes  Speaks: English* | Message 9 of 58 23 January 2011 at 6:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Interesting.
However, remember, there was another hyperpolyglot who was posting videos of himself allegedly speaking contemporaneously in multiple languages on YouTube, until it was learned that he was reading text off the computer screen (using Google translate in some cases). Not that there is anything wrong with that - it shows your pronunciation skills and grammar/translation skills (when Google is not used), but it does NOT show your ability to have a conversation or speak in that language. It is like actors learning lines phonetically for a movie. Deceptive to the non-language learner. Look at me, I can speak Italian. No, you can read Italian out loud. Edited by translator2 on 24 January 2011 at 12:09am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| translator2 Senior Member United States Joined 6921 days ago 848 posts - 1862 votes Speaks: English* | Message 10 of 58 24 January 2011 at 3:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I would just like to add that that is by far the oddest, most disturbing English accent I have ever heard in my life. Most of the words are over-pronounced or mispronounced, he mixes up regional accents. It's frightening. Impossible to listen to for any length of time. It is just bizarre. And I understand he teaches English? Shocking!
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| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5347 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 11 of 58 24 January 2011 at 4:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I haven't seen the video but if it is as bad as you all say, I think it is a refutation of a particular type of language learning rather than the man himself.
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| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6677 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 12 of 58 24 January 2011 at 5:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
It is not as bad as they say. I hope Ziad Fazah explains his methods and techniques. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5336 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 13 of 58 24 January 2011 at 10:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
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His English is not impressive if you compare it to the English most others who have English as a foreign language speak, and he was obviously reading out what he was saying. It was however not awful either, it was perfectly understandable, and probably no worse than the English of a lot of other teachers of English around the world. I have heard some absolutely hairy accents from teachers of English, some of them from members of my own family.
Perhaps it is just the Norwegian in me, but people who claim to be the world's best, biggest etc. do not impress me. Particularly after having watched the video where he was asked which day of the week it was in Russian, and he protested that he had not spoken Croatian in 30 years, and they could not expect him to know it. I haven't spoken Arabic in 30 years either, the result of which is that I speak absolutely no Arabic whatsoever. When filling out my languages here on the forum I put it at beginner level, since I currently know 10 more words of Arabic than say Indonesian,of which I do not know a single word. I would however not have had the guts to claim to speak Arabic because I once knew a little. That seems to be the problem with many polyglots. They take a language they have once known, or of which they have "notions" and say they speak it. Now I am willing to take my hat off for anyone who makes the effort of learning a foreign language properly, particularly if they also manage a good accent, but learning a few sentences does not qualify in my book. 11 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6677 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 14 of 58 24 January 2011 at 11:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Solfrid, I agree with everything you say.
Nevertheless, I find people interesting. I like to understand why they say what they say. Sometimes is amazing what you can find. It is always possible to learn from anyone. Edited by slucido on 24 January 2011 at 11:08pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| lingoleng Senior Member Germany Joined 5300 days ago 605 posts - 1290 votes | Message 15 of 58 25 January 2011 at 12:00am | IP Logged | |||||
Maybe we should not forget that the situation of a language enthusiast was far worse only 30 or even 20 years ago than it is today. Today's availability of material, audio, video, courses, everything your heart desires and plenty of it, is something one could only dream about. When I learned French I did not have any audio, only a textbook. I did what was possible, learned enough for reading novels or scientific literature, but my inner voice was an abstract construction without any life, and certainly far from real spoken French. ( With more money I could have bought better material, or a good radio, wow, this would have been something, a good shortwave radio, but the cheap ones I got were, umm, not high fidelity but low quality, the only thing I could internalize was the background noise, but no French accent. And there were no subtitles or transcripts ...). With Spanish things were slightly better, because the pronunciation was easier to learn from a description only, and for Italian I did really have a cheap course with 3 audio cassettes! That was fantastic, and when life and times changed I found out that my Italian accent was not so bad, my Spanish maybe understandable on a good day without rain or thunder, and my French, would I have spoken it, perfect gibberish, but I did not dare speak it, of course. Ok, nobody wants anecdotes about the sad life of a poor linguist, and I don't want to comment on the performance of Ziad Fazah, but he learned his languages under completely different circumstances than the younger generation(s). 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Leurre Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5427 days ago 219 posts - 372 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Korean, Haitian Creole, SpanishC2 Studies: Japanese | Message 16 of 58 25 January 2011 at 2:13am | IP Logged | |||||
I wonder if all people who self studied English thirty years ago had an accent like that. I agree that it's understandable, but it also sounds incredibly creepy to me. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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