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Clugston challenges polyglots to debate | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Kc2012 Diglot Groupie South Africa Joined 4474 days ago 44 posts - 65 votes  Speaks: English*, Afrikaans Studies: Dutch, Mandarin, Russian | Message 121 of 132 07 November 2013 at 11:31am | IP Logged | ||
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I must say, I don't agree with Clugston's repetitive aggression and harsh personal attacks/insults directed
towards respected youtubers. Having said that however, I do think he has a lot to contribute (about language learning) to the polyglot 'community', but it's a shame he can't seem to do it in a more friendly, non-aggressive manner. Having watched a lot of his videos, buried beneath rudeness, he does give interesting advice, and his video about the hardest language in the world for an English L1 was particularly interesting and eye-opening for me, seeing as he nails it down to a specific language, after outlining particular requirements a language would have to meet in order for it to be considered the 'hardest'. I found this interesting because most people say Arabic/Chinese etc is the hardest or they stick to the cliche, "Their is no hardest language, you can learn any language etc etc.." so this was a nice change. As far as what languages he knows; I read in an interview with him he said he's studied around 32 languages and is particularly good in 6 of them or something. He seems to have knowledge in Spanish, Italian, French, Thai, Khmer, Vietnamese as far as I can tell. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5321 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 122 of 132 07 November 2013 at 5:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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I listened to some of his recent videos and I honestly don't think that he has anything new to offer.
He keeps calling himself a "Power Linguist," but doesn't seem to have any credentials to back up this claim. According to his LinkedIn profile he's a trainer with a BSc in Sociology/Psychology and a BA in Secondary Education and Teaching who speaks Spanish, French and Italian. His main theses seem to be:
He also claims that the East Germans used the same "volume method" in sports, which clearly shows that he doesn't know what he's talking about, because many Eastern-bloc athletes were primarily more successful than other athletes because of the unlimited use of illegal performance enhancing substances. All this shows that he cannot be taken seriously. I certainly won't waste any more time listening to his rants. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5784 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 123 of 132 08 November 2013 at 12:22am | IP Logged | ||
This is my problem with Clugston: he not only doesn't help; he harms. He's the only YouTube polyglot whose opinion I have no respect for. Any other polyglot, agree with them or not, you usually come away from their posts/videos with something useful and at the very least feeling encouraged; Clugston leaves you feeling you have achieved nothing, that you're unworthy, he makes you feel like giving up. That's hardly surprising, though, because IMO that's exactly his intent: to put you in (what he considers) your place- certainly he has no interest whatsoever in helping you succeed. His attacks on everyone from Benny to Steve get quite nasty at times, but his attacks on Moses are actually scandalous. He makes me feel like s***, every single time I read a comment from him (obviously I no longer watch his videos). In short: no, I don't think watching a debate between Clugman and other polyglots would be useful. I think a lot of people learning (especially people on their first foreign language) would feel very demotivated after watching such a thing. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4623 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 124 of 132 08 November 2013 at 12:36am | IP Logged | ||
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No doubt quite a few of the YouTube polyglots are on an ego trip. But I have respect for anyone who
demonstrates their competence in various languages. I've yet to hear Clugston speak anything other than English. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5335 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 125 of 132 08 November 2013 at 8:29am | IP Logged | ||
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I just listened to a couple of his videos, one of them called "The very best YouTube polyglot" and buried
under tons of criticism of some, he does actually (reluctantly) speak nicely about a few of them. I could not help but smile when he wanted to point out Torbyrne's "weak spots" and mentioned his Spanish and the fact that he was still in the learning process with Turkish. Together with my Peruvian friend I have spoken with Torbyrne in Spanish and his Spanish is fantastic. If that would be considered a weak point then we might all just drop language learning, because the possibility of us learning L2 at a higher level than that s minimal. And since when does being in a learning process constitute a weakness? 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| TehGarnt Diglot Newbie Germany Joined 4853 days ago 33 posts - 63 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish | Message 126 of 132 08 November 2013 at 10:24am | IP Logged | ||
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I cannot believe that some steroid-crazed Youtube troll lunatic generated a 16-page
thread on a supposedly serious language learning forum. We all have vocabulary we could be learning. Good grief. 14 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Kronos Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5262 days ago 186 posts - 452 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 127 of 132 08 November 2013 at 9:05pm | IP Logged | ||
I had a look into the dozen or so books he holds in front of the camera (you can get a glimpse into some of them at amazon.com). Most of them are textbooks for conversational practice: comprehensive phrasebooks and others that teach language patterns via drills. A few also are books with grammatical exercises, apparently supplementing the aforementioned. I think that's about all. Judging from the nature of these books and the few indications he gives I presume that what he calls "Volume Language Method" is essentially a home-study substitute for the FSI pattern-drill style of language instruction. As I understand it the US military adopted this method in WWII and afterwards because they had to find something that would make even the average unexperienced person learn a language rather quickly, preferably in a group setting, keeping the organizational effort to a minimum. It was applied in order to meet the lowest common denominator, but to Clugston army training and field linguistics (??) are for some reason the only valid and "scientific" means of mastering a language. People learning by self-study he likes to call names (which I won't reproduce here) in a most aggressive manner, supposedly being doomed to remain "non-functional" etc., and to me this line of argument and choice of wording is sufficient not to investigate his philosophy any further. Interestingly Professor Arguelles explained in some of his old posts that compared to intensive output-based classes any solid self-study or philological method will get you the same results in at most half, but more likely one third of the time - or even less if you already have foreign language experience, especially with a related language. Moreover being exposed to unceasing drills for many hours a day can be a real torture. Regarding Clugston having a debate with any polyglots - well, an attempt to interview him was made by David Mansaray earlier this year, but it didn't materialize. They had a preliminary talk which lasted for several hours due to Clugston blocking each real communication by getting into long monologues and tirades. The talk went nowhere. A few days later, instead of agreeing to get interviewed, Clugston without further notice suddenly put up a video making fun of Mansaray and his allegedly not being functional in Spanish, which was a gross distortion of the truth since Mansaray had offered him to conduct the interview in Spanish, if he liked to. After that, as a defence, David put a long excerpt of his talk with Clugston online, which I listened to, and I have to say that Clugston's utterances seemed nothing but unintelligible mental convulsions, even worse than in his videos, whereas Mansaray always remained polite and patient, in spite of being increasingly bewildered. As I see it Clugston was obviously not interested at all in any open debate right from the beginning and just took the opportunity to corner one of his favorite hate objects and reiterate his scorn in public. And this might be the fate of everyone who wants to follow suit and take him too serious. Nevertheless he seems to exert a certain spell over others which I cannot account for. There are now several people on youtube backing him up using their real names, among them even a few academics, apparently being unaware that by openly endorsing this vampiric individual they are risking their professional credibility and in the long run may damage their careers. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Kugel Senior Member United States Joined 6539 days ago 497 posts - 555 votes Speaks: English* | Message 128 of 132 10 November 2013 at 4:04am | IP Logged | ||
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Considering that language learning is a small community, why would Clugston go out of his way to alienate himself? It would the same as going to a chess group, then smugly saying that everyone there is a moron. Even if it were the case, you just don't do it.
Could it have something to do with his combat sports? It seems that this area is his expertise, and maybe it is common to be more confrontational in that area. It would be very bad manners to walk into a boxing club with a show off attitude(posting language videos of speaking foreign languages for harmless fun). Showing respect and humility is typically expected in the ring... You guys do realize that hobbies/lifestyles that involve getting punched in the face sort of makes you different from others, right? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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