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Ziad Fazah - does he exist?

 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots (Topic Closed Topic Closed) Post Reply
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Dave M
Groupie
United States
bfmfightwear.com
Joined 6929 days ago

56 posts - 63 votes 

 
 Message 209 of 377
16 September 2006 at 9:02am | IP Logged 
I have recorded some tape to put on the website and a first fr4aft is on its way. His computer went poof aqnd I have to help him get one with media access so he can be interactive.
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Lastminute
Diglot
Newbie
United States
Joined 6960 days ago

3 posts - 3 votes
Speaks: Yoruba*, English
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 210 of 377
16 September 2006 at 9:30am | IP Logged 
That is true. Alot of people have spoken with Mr. Fazah but I don't think anyone has posted his method for learning languages since speaking to him. I am also very interested in his methods of learning languages
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slucido
Bilingual Diglot
Senior Member
Spain
https://goo.gl/126Yv
Joined 6678 days ago

1296 posts - 1781 votes 
4 sounds
Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan*
Studies: English

 
 Message 211 of 377
16 September 2006 at 1:10pm | IP Logged 
Lastminute,Here in this same dialog there is the method:

http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=289&PN=0&TPN=4

Ziad Fazah, the biggest poliglote of the world, suggests to study in seven steps:

-Reading with a loud voice      Read and repeat the sentences several times during the day
-Visualization      Read visualizing each sentence during 2 minutes.
-Memorizing      Revise each dialog or gramatical rule in silence until you memorize them as a whole.
-Question yourself      Cover the words with your hands, on the book. Remember the meanings (and synonims!) then checke the translation.
-Declamation      Simulate a dialog, making your own speech.
-Answer and Checking      Answer the exercises proposed by books
-Aprimorate      Revise the lessons.

and for more information:

http://br.geocities.com/jotta_mello/ziadeling.htm

Edited by slucido on 16 September 2006 at 1:14pm

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translator2
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6922 days ago

848 posts - 1862 votes 
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 212 of 377
16 September 2006 at 9:40pm | IP Logged 
It is the information and non-sequitors quoted in some of these articles that lead to confusion and doubt as to his abilities. Perhaps he was misquoted and these errors can be corrected on his own website.

Again, we are NOT questioning the veracity of his abilities, but merely the information that is out there that simply does not make sense.

slucido wrote:

http://br.geocities.com/jotta_mello/ziadeling.htm


Could someone who has spoken with him please clarify these statements from the above article?:

"Entre os 14 e 17 anos, aprendeu quase todos os idiomas que domina..." He learned almost all the languages he speaks between the age of 14 and 17?? That's about one language a month (in addition to his other school work and activities). Everyone here knows that that statement is hardly credible. WIth hard work, he might have acquired a few hundred words and a sketch grammar, but there are simply some things that just take time.

"O vocabulário do Prof. Ziad tem cerca de cem mil palavras..." "Mr. Ziad's vocabulary consists of almost 100,000 words. Well, subtracting 20,000 - 30,000 for his native language, that only leaves around 1200-1400 words per foreign language. This is nowhere near enough to be considered fluent and, I'm sorry, hardly remarkable or noteworthy in my opinion.

"...considera o chinês-mandarim, como a mais difícil, dado aos seus infinitos ideogramas..."
He considers Mandarin Chinese to be the most difficult given its numerous ideograms. Surely Cantonese (on his list) which uses the same "ideograms" and has twice as many tones would be more difficult. And what about Japanese which uses some of the same characters or Korean (also on his list) both with a much more difficult grammatical structure?

Also, numerous articles claim that he is short of money, can find no practical application for his skills or a way to market himself. Excuse me? He could make a killing working at home as a translator with his skills (www.ProZ.com, www.translatorscafe.com; www.gotranslators.com, etc. etc.). In today's climate, if he could translate even a fraction of his exotic languages into his native Arabic, he could soon be the World's Richest Translator as well.

Unfortunately, this is all the information we have about this person and all of it is very confusing and puzzling. I hope that this new website will clarify some of these things that don't make very much sense.



Edited by translator2 on 16 September 2006 at 10:16pm

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Dave M
Groupie
United States
bfmfightwear.com
Joined 6929 days ago

56 posts - 63 votes 

 
 Message 213 of 377
17 September 2006 at 7:29am | IP Logged 
He learned 3 languages at a time

He learned French,German,English (sort of) and Arabic as native languages in his country and special schooling

He learned Mandarin then \Cantonese, he considers written Chinese to be the hard part not spoken

Upon questioning he considers spoken Vietnamese as extremely difficult

Try teaching 8 classes a day and working as a full-time translator.

I am actively gathering material and voice recordings for the site. I would appreciate any ideas on names for the site

dmaswary@hotmail.com
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Journeyer
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
tristan85.blogspot.c
Joined 6871 days ago

946 posts - 1110 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, German
Studies: Sign Language

 
 Message 214 of 377
17 September 2006 at 11:03am | IP Logged 
Translator2, he said that it took him on average of 3 months per
language, although I imagine some of them would have taken even less
amount of time, depending on similarities with other languages (Spanish/
Portuguese, Norwegian/Danish/Swedish, etc). With a brilliant mind for
languages, I think this could be feasible.   Stranger things have happened.
:-)

As far as the vocabulary, I've actually wondered about that, as well. But
frankly, it seems to me that the evidence has been shifting in his favor
since this thread was launched, and while speaking with him, I've never
gotten the impression that he said he could speak a language, when
really he only new a basic amount of it. Granted, I didn't test him (nor
could I, with only English, Spanish, and German on my side), but I haven't
yet seen anything to the contrary.

I will say this though: he told me 3000 words should do it. Maybe he
didn't estimate correctly, who knows? But personally, I'm shooting for at
least 5000-6000 per language.
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translator2
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6922 days ago

848 posts - 1862 votes 
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 215 of 377
18 September 2006 at 10:58am | IP Logged 
Journeyer wrote:
I will say this though: he told me 3000 words should do it. Maybe he
didn't estimate correctly, who knows? But personally, I'm shooting for at
least 5000-6000 per language.


Don't forget that in addition to "words" (how many words you need to know to be considered "fluent" is always debatable and depends on your present level/goals) there are also thousands and thousands of idiomatic and slang expressions to learn. For example, I would consider 6000 words (INCLUDING idioms) to be an advanced beginner, 10-15,000 to be intermediate, and 25,000 - 30,000 to be reasonably fluent (not taking into consideration speaking ability/grammatical knowledge). I have vocabulary lists exceeding 40,000 words/idioms for three of my working languages. Even though I have learned all these words, I still feel that I have barely scratched the surface of vocabulary/idioms in each of these languages and there is always more to learn. Therefore, you can see that from my perspective, when he says "3,000 words should do it", I cannot help but wonder.

Edited by translator2 on 18 September 2006 at 11:04am

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SamD
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 6662 days ago

823 posts - 987 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, French
Studies: Portuguese, Norwegian

 
 Message 216 of 377
18 September 2006 at 11:24am | IP Logged 
When I see a figure such as "3,000 words should do it," I can't help but wonder--do what?

I suppose I could function in a language at a very basic level with only a few thousand words, but I couldn't be very comfortable for very long.


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