Benny Lewis (Polyglots) Language Learning Forum

Benny Lewis
Tags: Language Level Satisfaction \| Youtube Polyglot
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Language Learning Forum : Polyglots	( Topic Closed)

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hrhenry
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Message 17 of 164

05 April 2012 at 9:38pm | IP Logged

fabriciocarraro wrote:

You would be right and I'd agree with you, if that was the case here. Putting C1 as a 10, Benny's gotten himself a 6/7 in the mission. In my opinion, that's great anyway.

I don't speak Mandarin, so I can't judge the level he's gotten to. I do know, however, that there is disagreement as to whether he's reached a 6/7, as you believe.

R.
==
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fabriciocarraro
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Message 18 of 164

05 April 2012 at 9:46pm | IP Logged

Me neither, hrhenry. I just put here what he claimed in his post, to have reached a comfortable B1 level and to be aiming for B2 now.
If that's a lie, then he would be the one making fool of himself, claiming to be able to do something and not being. But hey, I still believe in people, the same way as I believe that young polyglot Tim can speak 20 something languages at some level. =)
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tmp011007
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Message 19 of 164

05 April 2012 at 10:10pm | IP Logged

fabriciocarraro wrote:

You would be right and I'd agree with you, if that was the case here. Putting C1 as a 10, Benny's gotten himself a 6/7 in the mission. In my opinion, that's great anyway.

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/36222-benny-lewis-3-month-quest-to-become-fluent-in-mandarin/page__st__220 wrote:

@anonymoose
"I just watched the 2.5 month video here. To be fair, given Benny had only been learning for 2.5 months, it wasn't a bad performance - probably better than most foreigners after such a short time.

However, given all the bluster about becoming fluent in 3 months and very fluid goals, it we are to judge based on this higher standard, then the performance could not be considered to be anywhere near fluent, was riddled with mistakes and had poor pronunciation.

I don't relish giving such a harsh appraisal to a very good effort, but at the same time, I object to those who preach some revolutionary technique to learning languages which don't actually deliver when put into practice (as is usually the case)."

@roddy
"..Guy studied hard for three months, learned a bit of Chinese. Nothing special, and to be honest given the amount of hype, pretty disappointing. Nothing you couldn't get out of three months at a decent language school. In fact quite possibly a lot less. Credit for trying though."

@xuefang
"Based on his 2,5 month video I would say he is on A2 level. It's great progress for three months, I probably learnt pretty much the same in Finland in 1,5 years. But that is the level I thought he would get, so no surprise there. I also don't agree with his definitions of fluency, for example when he says his high level fluency is still a bit off, I would say that high level fluency is not something he will get in few weeks, or during the next three months traveling.

I also think that it's better to set realistic goals than try to reach fluency in thee months. When you set a realistic goal you will study hard, but you also get the feel of success, which is very important to keep you motivated."

@realmayo
"Yes, no harm having someone say he's going to learn far faster and far better than anyone else and that he's going to prove all those "naysayers" wrong, but rather than giving those naysayers a chance to say "well done" or "I told you so" at the end, it'll just be "oh well that's not bad for three months I suppose but certainly not C1 (and his tones are off)"."

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JimC
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Message 20 of 164

05 April 2012 at 10:17pm | IP Logged

Schoenewaelder
“The main criticism of him is that his claims are exagerated and/or that he uses
wording that leads to misinterpretation. I think the reason that people find him so
irritating, is because he is very skilled at arguing, and he never concedes anything.”

I wonder if you read the blog post that I referred to. It seems to me, that the claims
are not exaggerated. He is making few claims that he can’t back up with evidence. He is
not claiming native fluency in three months. The level that he has managed to achieve
in his learning projects seems to me to be pretty good for having spent three months.
He is not claiming that everyone could do it, due to their own circumstances or
motivation

tmp011007
posted by Benny on Apr. 4 2012
, .... I’m very proud of what I’ve done in this time – if you decide that the 3 months
is a “failure” because I didn’t get the C1 target, then that’s your own sad problem
..."

I am really sad

Are you really saying that you feel that what Benny has achieved represents failure?

I accept that everyone has an opinion, and may feel that Benny’s style is not for them,
but it seems to me that his style works have him and could work for others. I don’t
think that anything else can be expected of a language learning technique. It also
seems that he provides a lot of input for free on his website that people can take or
leave. He has a product that people can decide to buy or not. I personally have not
bought it and therefore receive a lot of potentially helpful material for free. I
really don’t see why he gets such negative comments, (I refer to previous comments on
this forum, not those that I quoted above)

Jim

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Serpent
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Message 21 of 164

05 April 2012 at 10:57pm | IP Logged

fabriciocarraro wrote:

The main difference between Tim and the rest of us, mortals, is that he has no problem whatsoever in studying his target language 15 hours "non-stop" in a single day. Imagining an average of 10/12 hours a day, 6 days a week for 3 months (i.e. 90 days), how good would he be after it? Certainly better than me in a whole year.
I'd most likely collapse if I ever tried it =P

I did that in the beginning of my Finnish studies and I surely reached the intermediate level faster than most learners do, but I can assure you only an Estonian or Karelian native speaker would do better than me:P
I don't know who that Tim guy even is but didn't even Benny say that "IF he concentrated on one language", implying that he currently does 10-15 h a day but in various languages? That's very different from doing 10-15 hours in one language.

I'm not sure at all that it's possible to achieve more in 3 months of intensive study than you do in a year. It's like claiming that if you plant enough trees, the forest will grow faster.

It's possible to achieve more in a year than you or me do in a year, though :)
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tmp011007
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Message 22 of 164

05 April 2012 at 11:06pm | IP Logged

JimC wrote:

Are you really saying that you feel that what Benny has achieved represents failure?

nope.. what I'm trying to say it's something more like

http://www.mezzoguild.com/2012/03/30/foreign-language-aspect-you-cant-bullshit/ wrote:

People want fast results and the gimmick-peddlers are more than happy to offer those fast results for dollars...

JimC wrote:

I accept that everyone has an opinion, and may feel that Benny’s style is not for them, but it seems to me that his style works have him and could work for others.

I'm a lil bit confused here. when you write "his style" are you referring to "his personality/way to react" or "his method"? depending on the meaning: 1. I don't like very much his style, you are right (if you mean his online character) and/or 2. I have no clue what you're talking about (if you mean his method).. AFAIR he had this "speak from day one approach" but in this mandarin journey I dunno what happened. it was all about hard work, reading, tutors and a lot of things he loved to hate in his posts

JimC wrote:

I personally have not bought it and therefore receive a lot of potentially helpful material for free.

I did, and if you want something more than a motivational speech, do not buy it

JimC wrote:

I really don’t see why he gets such negative comments, (I refer to previous comments on this forum, not those that I quoted above)

it's all about his online character, his extremely aggressive tone

now, if you're really interested in his actual mandarin performance:
http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/36222-benny-l ewis-3-month-quest-to-become-fluent-in-mandarin/page__st__22 0

Edited by tmp011007 on 05 April 2012 at 11:25pm
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Snowflake
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Message 23 of 164

06 April 2012 at 12:47am | IP Logged

schoenewaelder wrote:

My own frustration with him is that despite his voluminous blog and commentary output, he is a bit reticent about what he actually does on a day to day basis. As far as I can interpret, he actually does a massive amount of conventional studying, but all he ever talks about is the speaking. I don't think he actually talks from day 1, but starts after a couple of weeks, and gradually increases it so by the end of the 3 months, the whole of his study is "interacting with the natives". But I may be wrong.

I've been following his Mandarin posts and comments. He did speak Mandarin on day 1. He had to do several errands, don't recall what. He went into a shop or two, spoke to the shopkeepers but was not understood other than his greetings. So he started asking people, in Mandarin, if they knew English as he needed help. No one understood his Mandarin other than the greetings. On day 2 or 3 he got his task accomplished after carefully rechecking checking tones etc plus using hand signals.
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hrhenry
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Message 24 of 164

06 April 2012 at 1:05am | IP Logged

Snowflake wrote:

schoenewaelder wrote:

... I don't think he actually talks from day 1, but starts after a couple of weeks, and gradually increases it so by the end of the 3 months, the whole of his study is "interacting with the natives". But I may be wrong.

... He did speak Mandarin on day 1.

I think what schoenwaelder is getting at is that this mission came across, or at least was reported, differently than his previous missions.

I started following Benny around the time of his Hungarian mission. In all of his missions since then, Mandarin was the first that he really documented how much he was studying outside of his normal socialising.

If you go back and read just how much he was studying, I think you'll find it was a good portion of his three months in Taiwan. It really wasn't until the last couple weeks of his mission that he documented going out and meeting people, as we've seen in his other missions. He also hired more than one paid tutor. I don't recall him doing that on other missions, but maybe he did.

R.
==

Edited by hrhenry on 06 April 2012 at 1:06am

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