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Ziad Fazah - does he exist?

 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots (Topic Closed Topic Closed) Post Reply
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translator2
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 Message 305 of 377
02 October 2007 at 11:53am | IP Logged 
Apparition: I was concentrating so much on the video that I missed the "What the &@#@ Am I Doing Here" caption on the screen. Thanks for pointing this out.

Walshy: RE: The Persian gentleman's comment at 1:52: Ziad was making up a translation explaining that the Persian man was talking about the difficulty of the Farsi alphabet, how different it is, etc. and the Persian man responded: "Lamento, yo no te pregunté esto." or "Sorry, that is not what I asked you".
Apparently, Ziad was not aware that these people also spoke Spanish and he thought he could make up or guess at the translation.

Yes, it would be hard to rapidly "switch gears" from one language to another like that, but someone billed as the Greatest Polyglot really should have faired much
better.

Thanks for agreeing with me about the "emperor" bit, but as I said in a much earlier post - the story called The Man who Knew Javanese is really most appropriate:

"If you understand Portuguese (ironically, this story is written in Portuguese), you should definitely read the short-story O homem que sabia javanes by Lima Barreto: Link to story It tells the story of a man who reads an advertisement placed by an elderly gentleman seeking a tutor in Javanese. He reasons that not many people would be applying for this job and believes that he has a good chance of getting hired even though he does not speak a word of Javanese. The protagonist goes to the library and looks up Javanese in the encyclopedia and quickly commits the alphabet and a few words and phrases to memory. He gets the job, but soon discovers that his student is not quite so adept at languages and he is able to keep a few lessons ahead of his student. The story goes on and the rumors about his �knowledge� of Javanese spread until he is ultimately offered a diplomatic position based on his knowledge of this language he still does not speak.


Edited by translator2 on 02 October 2007 at 11:58am

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alang
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 Message 306 of 377
02 October 2007 at 3:07pm | IP Logged 
translator2 wrote:
AND - Instead of just saying - I don't know, he tried several times to make up some crazy answer


This is pretty confusing. I don't understand the logic or point of Ziad continuing when people there are actually testing his language ability.


morphy wrote:
I believe we should wait for other elements before making a final judgment on Ziad Fazah's linguistic capabilities.


I agree, as a lot of the reactionary response is fairly quick to condemn the guy. It does make him look really silly. Maybe that was the point of the show, but that is just speculation.

Walshy wrote:

morphy wrote:
Thirdly, some people on this forum stated that they talked with Ziad in their native languages and that he did "ok", which is normal if he's rusty in that language...

Most of those people only have a handful of posts to their names, with very few posts, if any, outside this very thread. Mere sock-puppets, perhaps. I don't think a single established member verified more than a language or two.


This makes sense. The thing I am wondering about is the skeptics have the available contact information and don't contact Ziad. If they have, please post on the thread on how the interaction went. He is afterall being tested privately instead on a public show. This might help more members understand about the ability of Ziad.

edwin wrote:

Dave, you have failed to deliver what you have promised. We really have enough of your lies.



Pretty extreme accusative statement. I personally will continue to wait until DaveM presents his side of the story. Between sooner or later. I hope it is sooner. He could shed more light on the subject.
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edwin
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 Message 307 of 377
02 October 2007 at 3:24pm | IP Logged 
alang wrote:

edwin wrote:

Dave, you have failed to deliver what you have promised. We really have enough of your lies.


Pretty extreme accusative statement. I personally will continue to wait until DaveM presents his side of the story. Between sooner or later. I hope it is sooner. He could shed more light on the subject.


Please continue to wait on behalf of us. I personally have waited for more than half a year. Some people have even waited for nearly 2 years!

But if you spend time going through the past posts by DaveM, you can tell that he is playing game with us.
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jeff_lindqvist
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 Message 308 of 377
02 October 2007 at 3:25pm | IP Logged 
Although I must admit that I think the clip is somewhat funny, I don't "believe it" more than the English spoken in the old kungfu-movies. Yes, I think that the audio in this clip is that bad synchronized.
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apparition
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 Message 309 of 377
02 October 2007 at 3:28pm | IP Logged 
jeff_lindqvist wrote:
Although I must admit that I think the clip is somewhat funny, I don't "believe it" more than the English spoken in the old kungfu-movies. Yes, I think that the audio in this clip is that bad synchronized.


It just seems delayed a few seconds, to me. Nothing funny going on there, I don't think.

In any event, the expressions and body language of everyone involved speaks louder than the words, I think.

Edited by apparition on 02 October 2007 at 6:21pm

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translator2
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 Message 310 of 377
02 October 2007 at 5:19pm | IP Logged 
What about the text at the bottom that says "What the &&#@$# am I doing here" or the man looking through the Guinness World Book checking to see if this is the right person, the wrinkled faces of the puzzled native speakers, the sweat pouring down his brow, the snickers from the audience, are these out-of-sync as well? If someone were going to dub this, why does he speak Spanish so poorly? Give me a break.

Judging by his responses, he seems only able to talk about one subject in his languages. Have any of the people who supposedly spoke with him talked about subjects other than languages and language learning? Perhaps he has trained himself to speak fluently about this one subject (highly likely to be the topic of discussion when speaking with him or he can steer the conversation towards this subject in order to appear fluent), but knows nothing else.

Edited by translator2 on 04 October 2007 at 10:42pm

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jeff_lindqvist
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 Message 311 of 377
02 October 2007 at 6:00pm | IP Logged 
Hey, I just made a comment or two on the bad sync. Anyway, the clip pretty much confirms everything that has been said about the show, the really simple questions (how about the Russian guy - one word a second...:)).

I'm looking forward to seeing a response from DaveM.
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apparition
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 Message 312 of 377
02 October 2007 at 6:22pm | IP Logged 
jeff_lindqvist wrote:
Hey, I just made a comment or two on the bad sync.


I thought you were saying that because it was dubbed poorly, it might not have been authentic or something. I thought you meant "funny" as in "fishy," or "not genuine", not "haha" funny. My mistake!




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