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Ziad Fazah - does he exist? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| rafaelrbp Pentaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 7016 days ago 181 posts - 201 votes  Speaks: Portuguese*, Spanish, English, French, Italian Studies: German | Message 273 of 377 03 April 2007 at 1:34pm | IP Logged |
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He lives in Rio de Janeiro city. Flamengo is just a neighborhood here, accessible by subway, not far from Copacabana beach, Sugar Leaf and other famous places.
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| lady_skywalker Triglot Senior Member Netherlands aspiringpolyglotblog Joined 6893 days ago 909 posts - 942 votes Speaks: Spanish, English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, French, Dutch, Italian | Message 274 of 377 03 April 2007 at 2:41pm | IP Logged |
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I have to admit that I wonder why Ziad Fazah just doesn't run a blog of his own. Other polyglots, like Steve Kaufmann, have their own and they require less effort than an actual webpage (all you have to do is logon, type and post).
Maybe this is something to consider? Or perhaps I am just a little too obsessed with blogging. ;) 2 persons have 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 275 of 377 03 April 2007 at 5:02pm | IP Logged |
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Dave, could you please help with this question I have about Dzongkha and Bhutanese, as well?
I asked about this in the "Specific Language" page, but it's probably more appropriate here. This is basically the same post I made; I just copied and pasted it here, basically just quoting myself into this thread. If one looks at the link to a Wikipedia stub about Mr. Fazah, it states he speaks 58 language but only lists 57. I compared the list of languages in Portuguese, which is 58 long, to the English translation, 57 long, and saw that in the Portuguese version, "Butanes" and "Dzonka" are both listed, but in the English list, only Dzongkha is listed. When I did some more searching, I saw that it appears to be a single language with two names. This isn't a debunking post about Mr. Fazah; I don't believe he is making false claims. But I'm curious about this one language statement. Is it a single language with two names? Is perhaps one referring to one language, and the other, or maybe a dialect of it? Is it a case as with Hindi/Urdu or Serbo/Croatian where the distinction is so slight it creates debates regarding if they really are separate languages? Even if it is, 57 languagesis still an accomplishment, but I wanted to see if this 58 number, which was even stated in the Guiness Book of World Records, is correct. I would like to ask him this myself, as I've been talking on the phone with him for the past couple of weekends or so, but I haven't been able to do so, yet. Thanks! Edited by Journeyer on 03 April 2007 at 8:09pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Dave M Groupie United States bfmfightwear.com Joined 6929 days ago 56 posts - 63 votes | Message 276 of 377 03 April 2007 at 10:03pm | IP Logged |
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Ill post a list of his spoken languages. \remeber though some he hasnt spoken in ages like \Cambodian.
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| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6450 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes Studies: German | Message 277 of 377 09 April 2007 at 2:04pm | IP Logged |
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I've read the whole thread. I'm sorry, but I have a few problems with this polyglot. I cannot believe he was able to find so much material for some very "obscure" languages. The sailor story is very unconvincing. He could have picked up a few sounds and meanings but math just does not add up here. Bhutanese sailors? Getting the necessary learning materials would have been next to impossible especially considering he lived in Lebanon. His moving to Brazil helped, but honestly even Brazil is not the best place to learn most of these languages. I am impressed that he managed to learn many of these languages to some kind of usable level but his accomplishments are far less impressive than those of Kato Lomb for example (who had 16 languages on her list but who managed to become a translator and a simultaneous interpreter for many of them). He never managed to become a translator and he wanted to do it badly. He teaches English? Then this foreign language should be one of his strongest and if the writing sample I saw here is really his, I have to say I'm entirely unimpressed. This would mean that all of the languages further down the list are progressively worse and worse. I have no doubt he was excited and nervous during his TV appearance in Chile, but the fact remains that he failed rather miserably twice. His having to "practice" in advance in order to conduct a very basic conversation betrays some very poor skills. The list of languages he knows "well" is also getting smaller. First I read that it's around 25, then that it's 12. I also hear an awful lot about how he's not getting enough business, how they didn't pay him etc. Assuming that most of his story pans out I believe that he did himself a huge disservice by going into so many languages. He could have become a translator and a locally celebrated polyglot with far fewer languages under his belt.
This whole story reminds me of a friend who thought he knew how to play the guitar. He knew quite a few tunes, badly. When he felt generous and wanted to share his talent, he would take out his guitar and start "playing". After a few strokes he'd stop, mess with the strings, play a little, then stop again and so on. His favorite words while playing this music were: wait, wait, no, wait... Was he playing? Technically, yees but... I wanted to hit him over the head with his musical instrument. Edited by reineke on 09 April 2007 at 2:11pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| asad100101 Diglot Senior Member Pakistan languagel.blogspot.c Joined 6458 days ago 118 posts - 137 votes Speaks: Hindi*, English | Message 278 of 377 09 April 2007 at 5:03pm | IP Logged |
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If Dave with whom I just talked on the phone could hook me up with Ziad then i can atleast test his urdu ability. BTW, Dave seems to me a very quick learner, has a knack for picking up the native like pronunciation. I taught him some sentences and he pronounced them correctly. Almost native like.
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| Dave M Groupie United States bfmfightwear.com Joined 6929 days ago 56 posts - 63 votes | Message 279 of 377 09 April 2007 at 6:48pm | IP Logged |
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Hey Asad, Im gonna send you an e mail in a few minutes
As for Renike. Im starting to get a bit offended here. All of his middle estaern languages are native perfect or near it. All of his romance lnaguages too, all of his Germanic langauages and his German are near perfect and all at least of the level of an educated foreigner and his russian, japanese and many other languages are excellent. His Mandarin is excellent, truly truly excellent I also want you to understand something. Lebanon and its port cities are on the docks of Europe. Sailors and people around there are coming from anywher e and everywhere in the Mediterranenan. I know how he got his materials. In particular his Urdu book was given to him by the Brazilian ambassador to Pakistan in 1976. He studied it and spoke with who he could. Also keep in mind he went straight from Lebanon where he learned most of the languages to Brazil where the predominant languages are, and I say this because every foreign language course teaches them - Japanese,Spanish,Italian,French,German and English. To translate a language you have to generally translate into your native language. Meaning he would have to translate any of those foreign languages from Cambodian, say, into Arabic or Persian. Living in Brazil how do you get jobs with Arab governments???????? In Rio he got married and had a son and almost all Brazilians want to learn English for work, Spanish for work, or French for school. On occasion Italian but little else. Rio is not a diverse country linguistically - no one needs to speak anything really but Portuguese and English. My fatheris Israeli and I speak Hebrew ias well, both of us can vouvh for his Hebrew which his excellent. I find no reason to disbelieve that when he was speaking cambodian, he was speakig very well but I havent seen one Cambodian in Brazil EVER!!!!!!!! Asad is being a great friend to me helping me with my Hindi/Urdu. I know exactly two Indians here both of whom own restaurants and I refuse to travel to a restaurant ever day just to practice Hindi and pay 20$ for the food. If you spoke Cambodian but didnt see a Cambodian for 25 years, dont you think youd need a few dayas to review. Damn!!! Before you get righteous and say well why doesnt he rent films bla bla bla - he works all day long in a poor country where people cant make a living. Let him do what he does in NY city and see how easy it would be for him. Incidentally his son speaks 6 languages fluently - all learned from Dad. Asad thank you for the kind words. I am preparing an e mail for you and if we cant speak tonight by phone (I have to go to bed early) lets try to talka round 7-9 my time tomorrow. use the websiter www.timeanddate.com so we can coordinate times so its conevnient for you. Tomorrow I will send you those materials I mentioned and soon we1ll be on our way to urdu english stardom 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6450 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes Studies: German | Message 280 of 377 09 April 2007 at 7:43pm | IP Logged |
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Hi Dave. You have nothing to be offended about as I did not mean to offend. I did question the story as it does not seem very realistic. I understand you're enthusiastic about the guy. He's either a very exceptional individual - or he's not. Either way, his story is of little use to me as I consider myself unexceptional and I cannot follow his example. I have to look elsewhere, toward Kato Lomb or Sir Richard Burton, who were exceptional but still human. I do have a knack for languages and I was born in a very touristy place in Europe, with large docks, an airport, libraries etc. As a kid I hounded Russian sailors for znachki, I saw Africans, Indians and a few others. The opportunities for contact were many but also very short. I don't know what these strangers would have said if I had asked them for exotic grammars and dictionaries. My mom taught me languages, and I studied them in school. I fantasized about learning Japanese. Materials were ridiculously few for that very important language in those years. That was well after your friend was supposed to have started learning some very exotic languages.
If he is able to recall a language he learned 25 years ago (for a ridiculously short amount of time and from at best very scarce and poor materials) and with very little refreshment be good at it then he's a genius and/or a guy with monstrous memory. Maybe we're having a very serious miscommunication as to what constitutes appropriate passive knowledge and fluency. In any case, no use to me. Thanks for sharing his story with us and providing us with rare information. Edited by reineke on 09 April 2007 at 7:50pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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