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Ziad Fazah - does he exist? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| Dave M Groupie United States bfmfightwear.com Joined 6929 days ago 56 posts - 63 votes  | Message 361 of 377 06 October 2007 at 6:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Well as for books and websites.....
I would truly like to do a website on languages. I have some excellent ideas. I am working on my own foreign languages and at a certain point I would like to have a site as well. It requires money however and I need to raise capital. My original conception of the website has changed as I have worked on my other website over the last two years and I have learned how demanding and time-consuming it is. I certainly dont want to put something of low-quality on the net. I will stay online and active in these forums and when I do have a site I will notify everyone. I hope you will all come over and visit and participate. As for Ziad I have made it clear. I am a student of his. I met him by chance. I have studied with him on and off based on the hectic pace of my life over that time and I am currently pursuing a martial arts and language career. I am not his promoter,agent, business representative - nothing! I have done little more than put in a good word for my teacher and I think whoever wants to test his skills or learn about him can call.I have heard him personally speaking in Arabic, Spanish, Italian, German, Dutch, Mandarin (I have no idea how well - it sounded good to me) French, Hebrew and Persian. I can judge several of those: Spanish he speaks well, with a bit of the Portuguese pollution common to anyone in Brazil who speaks Spanish, Italian and Hebrew he speaks well as I speak both of those. His German was verified by someone else to be very good and the rest I do not know. In Chinese he never seemed to run out of things to say. As I am not native Chinese I could not tell you how his tones are. His Persian sounds good but Im not Iranian or Farsi speaking to judge yet I have seen the language links next to everyones names and their are a large amount of native speakers of various countries. mlewan Newbie France Why dont you see how his French is??? Im not from France so you would know better than me. Serpent Triglot Senior Member Russian Federation You are Russian - You would know better than me And so on . During the time I have known him I have told him about this board but he is a grown man and I cant order him to get on his computer and stop by this board. That is why I left the phone number on here. I asked his permission and a few of you called. Thats really the best I can do and any of you as well frankly. I do not for the life of me understand why you would all prefer the Youtube clip to calling him. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| 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 362 of 377 06 October 2007 at 6:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Well, if you do call him wait a bit. I just tried to call him and he told me (in English) he was ill and couldn't really talk. He did say, however, he'd be willing to chat in about a week's time. Edited by Journeyer on 06 October 2007 at 6:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Dave M Groupie United States bfmfightwear.com Joined 6929 days ago 56 posts - 63 votes | Message 363 of 377 06 October 2007 at 6:32pm | IP Logged | |||||
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COntinuing (to break it up into bitee sized chunks)
Out of all of you may I kindly remind you The only one who has paid him a red cent here is me so if you are all afraid of being duped I assure I have the most to lose of all of you. I have to take care of a few things around the house then I will be back on here . Back in 20 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| HTale Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6381 days ago 164 posts - 167 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written)* Studies: French | Message 364 of 377 06 October 2007 at 8:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'll phone him and have a good old chat in Arabic. He's a seriously amazing guy; but he's not a super human. You know, in Arabic, "human" translates loosely to "insaan" which literally means "forgetful one". So give him a chance, 52 (58? unsure of the total number) of languages is an amazing feat, and some from time to time will get rusty. DaveM, you are extremely lucky to have access to a living legend.
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| Dave M Groupie United States bfmfightwear.com Joined 6929 days ago 56 posts - 63 votes | Message 365 of 377 06 October 2007 at 9:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks
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| Gamma Octoglot Groupie Brazil Joined 6946 days ago 82 posts - 85 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, French, English, GermanC2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Finnish Studies: Icelandic, Dutch | Message 366 of 377 07 October 2007 at 12:40am | IP Logged | |||||
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I would like to step into this discussion supporting xtremelingo (section 40 from this discussion), Dave M and all the other members whose positions are favorable to the fascinating person which Mr. Ziad Fazah is.
I am deeply disappointed with all the attacks originated by some members here, which have been addressed to Ziad Fazah. How come you people, as serious and respected -at least by me- language learners, construct your arguments against Ziad based on such a RIDICULOUS TV show? The lack of commitment to the great branch of human knowledge which the study of languages is, is clearly observable on that totally unprofessional and immoral Chilean TV show. Much more than scientific or cultural, this is a pathetic show where a bench of clowns are put together with the task of creating an entertainment comedy based on making fun and embarrassing a serious and unique intellectual person, generating a totally unhealthy and inappropriate environment for a linguistic test. I would like to show you some extracts from the article "O homem que sabe javanês" (The man who knows Javanese), which is part of an issue from 11/sept/1996 of the Brazilian "VEJA" magazine. This is a very respected and serious magazine here in Brazil. The following extracts, which refer to Ziad Fazah, are available at this website. ‘[...] Nesses encontros, o lingüista foi testado por pessoas em suas línguas nativas: polonês, grego, japonês e finlandês. "Fiquei surpresa", diz Ewa Kluza, funcionária do consulado da Polônia e formada em Letras pela Universidade de Varsóvia. "O polonês é um idioma muito difícil, mas ele fala bem e tem um vocabulário rico." [...]’ ‘[...] Na Grécia, Ziad só esteve de passagem, apresentando-se na TV. "Numa escala de zero a dez, dou nota 9", diz Evangelia Sinopoulos, funcionária do consulado grego no Rio. "Tivemos uma conversa coloquial e o diálogo fluiu normalmente." [...]’ ‘[...] Ziad só conhece o Japão e a Finlândia de fotografia. Mesmo assim, teve um desempenho bom nesses idiomas. "Ele tem um vocabulário rico para uma conversação comum", avaliou Setsuko Iseki, coordenadora do curso de língua japonesa do Instituto Cultural Brasil-Japão, no Rio. Em finlandês, Ziad tropeçou um pouco, mas também foi aprovado. "Ele se confunde um pouco nas inflexões que a língua tem no final das frases, mas seguramente sobreviveria na Finlândia sem precisar de intérprete", diz Ritva Tsitmitse, vice-cônsul do país nórdico no Rio." [...]’ Translation from Portuguese into English: ‘[...] In these meetings, the linguist was tested by many people in their natives languages: Polish, Greek, Japanese and Finnish. "I was surprised", says Ewa Kluza, employee of the Polish consulate and graduated in Linguistics by the University of Warsaw. "Polish is a very difficult language, but he speaks it well and has a rich vocabulary." [...]’ ‘[...] Ziad has only been to Greece for a short period of time, doing presentations on TV. "In a scale from zero to ten, I give him a 9", says Evangelia Sinopoulos, employee of the Greek consulate in Rio de Janeiro. "We had a colloquial conversation and the dialogue flowed normally. [...]’ ‘[...] Ziad only knows Japan and Finland by photographs. Despite such fact, he had a good performance in these languages. "He has a rich vocabulary for a commom conversation", evaluated Setsuko Iseki, coordinator of the Japanese language course of the Cultural Institute Brazil-Japan, in Rio de Janeiro. In Finnish, Ziad has stumbled a bit on some obstacles, but he has been also approved. "The inflections, which exist in the ending of the sentences in this language, make him a bit confused, but he would surely survive in Finland with no need of an interpreter", says Ritva Tsitmitse, vice consul of the Nordic country in Rio de Janeiro. [...]’ 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| xtremelingo Trilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6290 days ago 398 posts - 515 votes Speaks: English*, Hindi*, Punjabi* Studies: German, French, Arabic (Written) | Message 367 of 377 07 October 2007 at 12:47am | IP Logged | |||||
Edwin,
Ummm.. It says you joined this forum in 2007. Unless you had a different account before, you certainly were not waiting for 2 years. Why are you being so dramatic Edwin?
Whoah, cheated.. Why does anyone feel this way on Internet forums? Whether Ziad can speak 100 languages or speak only 1 language. Personally, I could care less. I just hope you are not losing sleep over this. Edited by xtremelingo on 07 October 2007 at 12:49am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| mlewan Newbie France lewan.chez-alice.fr/ Joined 6263 days ago 9 posts - 12 votes | Message 368 of 377 07 October 2007 at 1:10am | IP Logged | |||||
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Is there really no one here who can fill in the Farsi and Greek dialogues from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy8FXzkwZhE ? Not even the Spanish around it?
I would by the way appreciate if people stopped taking up space with repeated references to the same secondary sources (personal web sites that refer to journalists without linguistic knowledge who refer to natives without linguistic knowledge who say that Fazah does all right in a non scientific TV show or old Brazilian editions of the Guinness Book of World Records, and so on). We do have primary sources - his mails in English, the youtube video, pictures from his books, like this one with his English translations and more. It would be much more constructive and convincing to collect more primary sources than to shout foul at each other. Enough about that. What about the Farsi and Greek from the YouTube video? Any takers? Edit: Someone expressed concern that I mock the Brazilian edition of the Guinness Book of World Records. For the record: I would mock any edition of GBWR as primary source. However, in this case I was under the impression that only the Brazilian edition had mentioned Fazah. I have nothing against Brazil, Brazilians, South Americans or any other nationality. Edited by mlewan on 08 October 2007 at 12:33am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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