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I have spoken to Ziad Fazah | ||
Tags: Ziad Fazah | Conversation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
 Mae Trilingual Octoglot Pro Member Germany Joined 4994 days ago 299 posts - 499 votes  Speaks: German*, SpanishC2*, Swiss-German*, FrenchC2, EnglishC2, ItalianB2, Dutch, Portuguese Studies: Russian, Swedish Personal Language Map | Message 41 of 104 29 March 2012 at 9:52pm | IP Logged |
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Solfrid Cristin, I do have a question for Mr. Fazah...
In his videos he always says that he learned "all the languages of the world". What does he mean? As far as I know, there are thousands of languages out there... Thank you! 1 person has 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 42 of 104 29 March 2012 at 10:21pm | IP Logged |
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If I may chime in, Mae, he's definitely aware that there are other languages out there. When I told him about some of the languages I want to learn, such as Navajo, he said he knew of it but didn't see its usefulness. Just an assumption, but I think he meant all the "major" languages of the world, or the most famous ones anyways. For example, most people know of Norwegian and Norway, even if it's not a major language.
Edited by Journeyer on 29 March 2012 at 10:22pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Mae Trilingual Octoglot Pro Member Germany Joined 4994 days ago 299 posts - 499 votes Speaks: German*, SpanishC2*, Swiss-German*, FrenchC2, EnglishC2, ItalianB2, Dutch, Portuguese Studies: Russian, Swedish Personal Language Map | Message 43 of 104 29 March 2012 at 10:50pm | IP Logged |
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So you think he meant he learned "the top 59 languages of the world"?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_ native_speakers I'm interested in how polyglots choose their languages. Usefulness is a point, because of employability, mobility, etc. in the EU ;-) 1 person has 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 44 of 104 29 March 2012 at 11:13pm | IP Logged |
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I'm not sure what he meant. However, I don't remember asking him about it specifically. As far as to the languages he chose, I think he chose the ones he felt he could make money from. One of the things he spoke about a lot was trying to make a living with languages. At one point he told me not to try to make languages my sole means of gain, because it's not really possible by itself. And I think he's probably right: language skills are excellent, but often you need another set of skills to compliment them. I've never been hired in a job due to language skills alone, personally.
I think he wanted originally to be a translator, but again, most translators have some level of expertise in their field, especially in higher-up level translators. Context goes hand-in-hand with good translating/interpreting, as you are probably already aware. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Midnight Diglot Groupie Czech Republic Joined 4642 days ago 54 posts - 111 votes Speaks: Czech*, English | Message 45 of 104 30 March 2012 at 3:15pm | IP Logged |
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There goes my favourite Saami :D Now let's what has he come to. He's stuck in Brazil teaching the locals English, Spanish and maybe French. And how useful do you think Singlish and Cypriot Greek is?
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| Pisces Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4625 days ago 143 posts - 284 votes Speaks: English*, Finnish*, French, SwedishC1, Esperanto Studies: German, Spanish, Russian | Message 46 of 104 02 April 2012 at 6:17pm | IP Logged |
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I do not really understand how anyone can really admire him, considering we have every reason to believe that ZF is a man who lied for fame (getting into Guinness) and financial gain. And as for his excuse concerning the TV interview in Chile, that he hadn't prepared - well, he was tested on some of the most important languages (Russian, Chinese) - am I going to believe he has taken the trouble of learning Chinese well and doesn't bother to keep it up at all? Why did he learn it then?
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| 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 47 of 104 02 April 2012 at 6:31pm | IP Logged |
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For some polyglots, myself included, learning the language is a joy in itself and if the language is forgotten, it's not a big deal exactly.
I personally don't learn languages to use them; I approach them the way I approach books: I read/learn the ones I want, and focus on the ones I need. Besides, in my experience, a language isn't really lost anyways. If it falls into disuse and becomes unusable, it's usually possible to brush up on the language and in a couple days or weeks time of use or immersion, you'll find yourself back more or less where you left off. A few learners have talked about this, and there's even a thread about it somewhere called "Dehydrated Polyglot Skills" or something like that. Edited by Journeyer on 02 April 2012 at 6:32pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Midnight Diglot Groupie Czech Republic Joined 4642 days ago 54 posts - 111 votes Speaks: Czech*, English | Message 48 of 104 23 April 2012 at 3:40pm | IP Logged |
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Hello everybody.
My friend got this site personally from Mr. Fazah. www.ziadfazah.com.br I think it's worth checking out. I find the English translation too influenced by his Portuguese though. F.e. Choose the language down instead of "Choose from the languages below" or something. What's even more irritating is that he listed butanes and dzongkha as two languages again. Butanes could be Balochi, but I doubt it. And to top it off, he wrote Pushtu instead of the correct Pt equivalent Pachto which tells us even more about his skills. That's not acceptable from someone who's been living in Brazil for more than 4 decades. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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