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Clugston challenges polyglots to debate | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| gogglehead Triglot Senior Member Argentina Joined 6073 days ago 248 posts - 320 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Russian, Italian | Message 105 of 132 03 October 2013 at 6:52pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I watch Clugston´s videos purely for entertainment value. The way he spits a load of fire and hate and then chuckles at his own "humour", and the way he dismisses people who can speak more languages than him, to a much better level as "self agrandizing, non academic, pseudo scientific anti intellectual bandits", to me is absolutely hilarious! And he has recently restyled himself as "The Power Linguist"!
He claims to have lived in Spain for 10 years, but have you seen and heard his Spanish, spoken and written? Dear oh dear, the man can barely write in English. I really think we should have more appreciation for him, but as a comedian, because I doubt that anyone really takes his "linguistic" babbling seriously. As already mentioned, what is very pathetic is the way he stoops to personal insults about Benny´s weight etc, and he even mentioned Richard Simcott´s appearance, even though with the mere addition of a pair of spectacles, Clugston looks like he could be Richard´s twin brother! I think it is a case of jealousy, because he always targets the "polyclods" who are the most popular with viewers. In one way, I know I shouldn´t encourage this total tosser by watching his videos, but it´s just so funny. I am waiting for him to have his own TV show hahaha "You need to get to the gym, you weigh about 50 pounds, and that means you are not a serious language learner!" hahahahah enough said, we should form an appreciation society 14 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5343 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 106 of 132 03 October 2013 at 7:34pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
In my modest opinion this is too harsh and excessive in the opposite direction. Everyone deserves a chance at self-rectification. I certainly won't be watching any of his videos though, but that's because with one exception I watch *none* of these Youtube "celebrities" of the language-learning community. Other than professor Argüelles, I find them all quite boring, and in particular regard as spectacularly unimpressive being able to conduct small talk in a foreign language. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4907 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 107 of 132 03 October 2013 at 8:56pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Erenko, are you trolling? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6437 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 109 of 132 04 October 2013 at 4:14am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Jeffers: I think I'd call erenko's post a well-placed bit of sarcasm, rather than trolling. Pronunciation is something that accomplished polyglots vary quite a lot from each other about, both in attitude and in skill. And he certainly has a point about Michel Thomas - he successfully gave rather expensive courses with an extremely heavy accent in the target languages.
S_allard: If one hour with a tutor fixed pronunciation problems permanently, I'd be much more of a promoter of tutors. I've observed no gains, or temporary gains interleaved with or followed by the same old mistakes over and over, both in myself and in others... tutoring can be useful, but it's very rarely anywhere near that useful. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5428 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 110 of 132 04 October 2013 at 4:45am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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When I said that Gabriel Wyner's problems could be fixed permanently in an hour, I was certainly not thinking of
pronunciation problems that are often intractable. In this case at hand the pronunciation was not a problem at all. This person's background as a trained singer plus the courses at Middlebury College probably took care of that. The problems are really in the area of grammar and vocabulary. Things that are easily corrected and remembered. Something like saying "astuces" instead of "tips." I find that perfect pronunciation is overrated. In fact, the video here is an excellent example of good pronunciation and egregious grammar and vocabulary mistakes. Perfect grammar and vocabulary go far towards compensating for imperfect phonetics but the opposite does not work. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| I'm With Stupid Senior Member Vietnam Joined 4171 days ago 165 posts - 349 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Vietnamese | Message 111 of 132 04 October 2013 at 5:47am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I agree. You might be able to tell someone how to fix a problem in an hour, but you have little to no control over whether it's actually successful. In fact, improvements in pronunciation are next to impossible for a teacher to judge without outside aid, such as recording devices or the help of a colleague. The reason being that whether or not the pronunciation of the student is improving, the teacher's ability to listen to them is, and this creates the illusion of progress, when in reality, it'd be just as difficult to understand if they went abroad as they were at the beginning. Whether or not you can fix someone's pronunciation in an hour would come down to whether they know they're making the mistake. And even then, if they've been making the same mistake for a long time, then it'll likely be ingrained, and it will still take a lot of practice and motivation to change. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5530 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 112 of 132 04 October 2013 at 6:14am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Your last three posts were pretty much pure sarcasm with no content. Whether or not you agree with s_allard, he's actually explaining his position, and you're just metaphorically rolling your eyes. I'm still not actually sure what point you're trying to make, but if you find this thread so insufferable, maybe you'd be happier in another thread? Personally, I'm going to review some Anki cards and go to bed. 8 persons have voted this message useful |
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