Clugston challenges polyglots to debate (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

Clugston challenges polyglots to debate
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Language Learning Forum : General discussion

132 messages over 17 pages: << Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 15 ... 16 17 Next >>

pfn123
Senior Member
Australia
Joined 5081 days ago
171 posts - 291 votes

Speaks: English*

Message 114 of 132

04 October 2013 at 9:20am | IP Logged

erenko wrote:

If everybody agreed with everybody, nobody would be happy.

I agree... but for the sake of happiness I'll disagree :P

Edited by pfn123 on 05 October 2013 at 3:12am
5 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 115 of 132

04 October 2013 at 12:38pm | IP Logged

Volte wrote:

Jeffers: I think I'd call erenko's post a well-placed bit of sarcasm, rather than trolling.

In a recent thread Erenko and s_allard got into a debate which was turning pretty ugly. It appears to me that Erenko has made several posts directed at winding s_allard up, whether he means to or not. When writing on a forum, nobody can see your face or hear your tone of voice, so innocent sarcastic comments can easily be mistaken as a flame. That's why Facebook starts so many fights in schools.

emk wrote:

erenko wrote:

Jeffers wrote:

Erenko, are you trolling?

Everyone's so serious that I feel like crying, I mean laughing.

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.

Thank you for summing it up so well, emk.

Edited by Jeffers on 04 October 2013 at 12:38pm
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 116 of 132

04 October 2013 at 1:58pm | IP Logged

I'm With Stupid wrote:

Volte wrote:

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.

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.

I certainly agree that pronunciation problems are probably the most difficult to correct because of the difficulty
of retraining the sppech mechanism and the interaction between L1 and L2. Certain things, like the French u take
time, i.e. lots of practice. Prosody is notoriously difficult to master.

On the other hand, individual words or certain details can be cleaned up quite quickly if the learner is able to
focus specifically on the problem. For example, English-speakers initially have a problem pronouncing French
words ending in -tion because of the resemblance with English. But some drilling on the French pronunciation
quickly solves the problem.
1 person has voted this message useful

kanewai
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/kanewai
Joined 4887 days ago
1386 posts - 3054 votes

Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese
Studies: Italian, Spanish

Message 117 of 132

04 October 2013 at 7:27pm | IP Logged

That damn French u.

In fact, for Americans at least, all those damn u's. Micronesians had four distinct
'u' that, in American English, were interchangeable. It's hard to even hear the
difference, though to Micronesians the differences were huge. None of us in the Peace
Corps ever really mastered them. They also have four distinct 'r' sounds, but oddly these
weren't too difficult for us.

This is an excellent example of where some time with a professional tutor can pay off.
3 persons have voted this message useful

futurianus
Senior Member
Korea, South
starlightonclou
Joined 5007 days ago
125 posts - 234 votes

Speaks: Korean*

Message 118 of 132

05 October 2013 at 10:09pm | IP Logged

I found ProfArguelles' viewpoint on how linguistics can help with language learning informative.

Ardaschir

Malcolm wrote:

Perhaps Ardaschir could explain how Linguistics helps with language learning (if it does at all).

ProfArguelles wrote:

Linguistics is often viewed as "hard" because it is all too often full of impenetrable jargon and indeed even complex mathematical forumulae. It is full of math and jargon because it isn't about languages any more, it is only theory about Language as an abstract map of the human mind. Noam Chomsky, the leading living linguist, openly dislikes foreign languages, and the only one he really knows is the Hebrew that his rabbinical scholar father taught him as boy. I've studied linguistics to a high level and known many linguists on four continents. There are probably more polyglots among linguists than among members of any other profession, but still, a shocking number of academic linguists have an extremely limited knowledge of foreign languages. I'm in self-imposed exile because I view most of my monolingual linguist colleagues to be the equivalent of zoologists talking about Animals on the basis of the knowledge of a single animal, or botanists talking about Trees on the basis of the knowledge of only one tree. Well, linguistics doesn't get this "hard" and abstract until it gets advanced. The two introductory courses you listed sound like they could be quite accessible and interesting. Also, be on the lookout for a course in something like historical philology. Philology is the only branch of linguistics that will actually help you with the study of languages.

Edited by futurianus on 05 October 2013 at 10:11pm
11 persons have voted this message useful

Retinend
Triglot
Senior Member
SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4306 days ago
283 posts - 557 votes

Speaks: English*, German, Spanish
Studies: Arabic (Written), French

Message 119 of 132

16 October 2013 at 2:49pm | IP Logged

Any linguist, I'm sure, would tell you that someone hell-bent on communicative
perfection in languages such as Clugstone would not be at home studying linguistics. Even
field linguists aren't required to be the elite of language learners worldwide - they just
need to know the technical language with which to communicate with other linguists their
insights.

Though this whole Clugstone business is trivial and not worth a second's thought, there
might be a risk that people take away the idea that Clugstone's personality somehow
represents "the" academic view of language. All that Clugstone represents is intellectual
terrorism.

Arguelles is a very knowledgeable guy, but I think that through his old-fashioned
humanism he's committed himself to the notion that knowledge about human beings can only
come from from the ways human beings describe themselves. E.g. literature and philosophy.
He has admitted himself that he has skewed in favour of the humanities in his
life-project of cultivating an "encyclopedic mind." I would be surprised if any field
of cognitive sciences (such as linguistics, as it progresses today) caught his interest.

edit: clarity

Edited by Retinend on 16 October 2013 at 6:15pm
5 persons have voted this message useful

Iversen
Super Polyglot
Moderator
Denmark
berejst.dk
Joined 6701 days ago
9078 posts - 16473 votes

Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan
Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian
Personal Language Map

Message 120 of 132

17 October 2013 at 12:22pm | IP Logged

I don't like Clugston's style, and I can't see that he is more scientific in his specific arguments than those he criticizes so I don't really see the point in having a discussion with him. If the topic of scientific degrees should turn up during a discussion with a less aggressive opponent then I would just mention that I actually have a relevant university degree and then proceed to discussions about some concrete topics - in English or other languages.

9 persons have voted this message useful

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