Register  Login  Active Topics  Maps  

Ziad Fazah

 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots (Topic Closed Topic Closed) Post Reply
58 messages over 8 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next >>
Volte
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 6442 days ago

4474 posts - 6726 votes 
Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian
Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese

 
 Message 1 of 58
02 October 2010 at 1:03am | IP Logged 
This site's description of Ziad Fazah is perhaps in need of editing.

http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/guide/ziad-fazah.html wrote:
If by linguist you mean a person who loves and knows many languages (thus not always a specialist of linguistics), then the world's current best linguist is a Lebanese man who lives in Brasil named Ziad Fazah. Actually, the word polyglot is better but less used. The guy speaks, reads and understand more than 40 languages, most of them learned before he was 20!

He has been invited several times on TV shows and has been tested by speakers of such odd (please excuse me) languages as mongolian and hungarian, always with success.


Ziad Fazah clearly has some significant knowledge and competence in several languages, but his test results have not been uniformly positive.

Is anyone interested in coming up with a more accurate description? Please only do so if you intend to take all available information into account; neither a glowing description of his strongest languages or a roasting for his failures in basic comprehension in his weaker ones strikes me as appropriate.


1 person has voted this message useful



Torbyrne
Super Polyglot
Senior Member
Macedonia
SpeakingFluently.com
Joined 6098 days ago

126 posts - 721 votes 
Speaks: French, English*, German, Spanish, Dutch, Macedonian, Portuguese, Italian, Swedish, Czech, Catalan, Welsh, Serbo-Croatian
Studies: Sign Language, Toki Pona, Albanian, Polish, Bulgarian, TurkishA1, Esperanto, Romanian, Danish, Mandarin, Icelandic, Modern Hebrew, Greek, Latvian, Estonian

 
 Message 2 of 58
22 January 2011 at 9:41pm | IP Logged 
I know there has been a lot of talk about Ziad Fazah on this forum and I know that there are people out there who will hate me for reviving this thread...but...

I have to...

Ziad Fazah has just started his own YouTube channel and is making videos in different languages. See what you think: http://www.youtube.com/user/srcforeignlanguages
4 persons have voted this message useful



edwin
Triglot
Senior Member
Canada
towerofconfusi&Registered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6467 days ago

160 posts - 183 votes 
9 sounds
Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin
Studies: French, Spanish, Portuguese

 
 Message 3 of 58
22 January 2011 at 10:12pm | IP Logged 
Finally!!

I am afraid his Mandarin is a bit far off. Sounds like a beginner. For sure he needs more work on it.

His English is actually very fluent. You may not tell from his video. But I did talk to him on the phone 3 years ago. He is a friendly guy. I enjoyed talking to him.

2 persons have voted this message useful



magictom123
Senior Member
United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5596 days ago

272 posts - 365 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Italian, French

 
 Message 4 of 58
22 January 2011 at 11:24pm | IP Logged 
I wouldn't say his English was anything to write home about. Considering he is the
'world's greatest living polyglot' I would have thought that his English would have been
alot better than it is, given it's gloabl status. His accent sounds like he has had
Pimsleur on repeat for the last 20 years as well.
1 person has voted this message useful



Zorrillo
Pentaglot
Groupie
United States
Joined 6387 days ago

41 posts - 82 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Sign Language, Spanish, Polish
Studies: Greek, Georgian, Indonesian

 
 Message 5 of 58
22 January 2011 at 11:30pm | IP Logged 

I found his English to be stilted and robotic. I can't comment on his Chinese or Japanese.

I see he is still clinging to that title of "greatest living polyglot"...I think it would be wise for him to drop that act, because he is going to get absolutely eviscerated if he is unable to back up his claims.

Not a very impressive debut...I think we have more accomplished and humble polyglots right here on the forum, including the man who provided the link.
2 persons have voted this message useful



hjordis
Senior Member
United States
snapshotsoftheworld.
Joined 5189 days ago

209 posts - 264 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: French, German, Spanish, Japanese

 
 Message 6 of 58
23 January 2011 at 1:21am | IP Logged 
His Chinese and Japanese sound robotic too. His Chinese sounds least stilted to me, but then I don't speak Chinese and it STILL sounds bad.
1 person has voted this message useful





Fasulye
Heptaglot
Winner TAC 2012
Moderator
Germany
fasulyespolyglotblog
Joined 5850 days ago

5460 posts - 6006 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto
Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 7 of 58
23 January 2011 at 8:58am | IP Logged 
Torbyrne wrote:
I know there has been a lot of talk about Ziad Fazah on this forum and I know that there are people out there who will hate me for reviving this thread...but...

I have to...

Ziad Fazah has just started his own YouTube channel and is making videos in different languages. See what you think: http://www.youtube.com/user/srcforeignlanguages


Thanks for posting this link, Torbyrne!

I don't understand Mandarin or Japanese, but I listened to his video in English.

Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/user/srcforeignlanguages#p/a/u/0/ouvA SFj0q1k

In this video he presents his name Ziad Fazah and says literally:

"I do keep being the greatest living polyglot in Guiness Book internationally and nationally."

I personally prefer polyglots who are modest people without any need to boast about their abilities or making absolute claims.

Fasulye



Edited by Fasulye on 23 January 2011 at 9:14am

1 person has voted this message useful



noriyuki_nomura
Bilingual Octoglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 5343 days ago

304 posts - 465 votes 
Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Japanese, FrenchC2, GermanC2, ItalianC1, SpanishB2, DutchB1
Studies: TurkishA1, Korean

 
 Message 8 of 58
23 January 2011 at 12:59pm | IP Logged 
I just watched the youtube, and I have to say and confirm that, I have to really concentrate alot to understand his self-introduction in Mandarin and Japanese. As a matter of fact, for most parts of the self-introduction, I really have no clue as to what he was saying.   

Edited by noriyuki_nomura on 23 January 2011 at 12:59pm



1 person has voted this message useful



This discussion contains 58 messages over 8 pages: 2 3 4 5 6 7 8  Next >>


Post ReplyPost New Topic Printable version Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page was generated in 0.8145 seconds.


DHTML Menu By Milonic JavaScript
Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved
No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization.