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Ziad Fazah - does he exist? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| Latin Newbie Chile Joined 7002 days ago 6 posts - 7 votes | Message 41 of 377 29 September 2005 at 10:11am | IP Logged | |||||
I think the producers just wanted to have fun, and show the audience this amazing man, who was able to speak in different languages, but unfortunately it turned out to be a proof of his incompetence. They supposed that is easy to know English, Spanish, French, German, most of the people learn this languages at school, so it wouldn't be exciting to see somebody who learned these.
Good point, but I have to say that the questions had to be easy, that was what the presenters said to the natives, (at least this is what I remember, this happened almost ten years ago), but I don't think the questions were too complicated. and the couple of people who ask, did it in a slow way, and had to repeat them a couple of times for him to catch the meaning. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7208 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 42 of 377 29 September 2005 at 9:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
It has been said by others that some accents are difficult to understand by natives of the language. The accent in Trainspotting has been mentioned as difficult by some from the US. In another thread, there was discussion of German dialects that are very difficult for even natives to understand.
is a good example of a phrase understood by most 8 year olds in the US. One can come up with all sorts of colloquialisms that could trip up an accomplished but non-native student. Perhaps Ziad Fazah is no Mezzofanti. I'm just skeptical when a powerful nebulous force like a TV show sets out to destroy a human soul. The obverse is if Fazah wooed Merv Griffin it wouldn't necessarily prove anything either. Edited by luke on 29 September 2005 at 9:50pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Raistlin Majere Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Spain uciprotour-cycling.c Joined 7155 days ago 455 posts - 424 votes 7 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish*, Catalan*, FrenchA1, Italian, German Studies: Swedish | Message 43 of 377 30 September 2005 at 6:44am | IP Logged | |||||
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It's sad that this happened to that poor man, and I think we can't really accuse him of being a liar, because perhaps he really thought he had learnt the languages and he even deceived himself on the TV program. Though on the other side, maybe he was lying, but we have no evidence and so we haven't got the right to judge him. Perhaps Mezzofanti himself was in the same situation, perhaps not, but this doesn't make me skeptical about a human being being able to learn 50+ languages. I know it can be done, Ziad Fazah himself could have done it (though certainly not, I think, the way he claims he did). Ziad just was a victim of his own misjudgement, we can't call him liar.
Anyway, he should have checked he really knew the languages before he said he did, and he paid the price for overconfidence. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| mello Groupie Brazil mypolyglot.com Joined 7057 days ago 48 posts - 48 votes Speaks: Portuguese* Studies: English | Message 44 of 377 18 October 2005 at 9:10am | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm from Brazil, the place where ziad lives, In our TV shows, he is sometimes tested and he always succed in answering all te questions, here we believe that he is the greteast polyglot that ever lived, I would like to know more about that chile tv show....
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| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7379 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes 12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 45 of 377 18 October 2005 at 10:13am | IP Logged | |||||
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A reader kindly sent me yesterday very convincing proof that Mr Fazah does indeed exist. I will try to post it on this website as soon as I can.
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| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 7018 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 46 of 377 18 October 2005 at 2:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I look forward to reading the information you have.
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| cheemaster Newbie Canada Joined 7048 days ago 35 posts - 35 votes | Message 47 of 377 19 October 2005 at 1:23am | IP Logged | |||||
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I have contacted Ziad Fazah by email, and am awaiting a response. I guess I'll have to wait for Mr Administrator's information in the meantime.
EDIT: Neither of the two addresses I contacted were still viable. They are probably the same ones others have tried to contact already. Edited by cheemaster on 19 October 2005 at 12:24pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7379 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes 12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 48 of 377 19 October 2005 at 6:27am | IP Logged | |||||
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I have just published a new page called Ziad Fazah - does he really exist? with scans of three of his books and links to the Brazilian National Library.
I think this established his existence although it is quite hard (as for any polyglot) to know how well he speaks these languages. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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