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Clugston challenges polyglots to debate | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| renaissancemedi Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Greece Joined 4359 days ago 941 posts - 1309 votes  Speaks: Greek*, Ancient Greek*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew | Message 25 of 132 27 September 2013 at 8:34am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Check out the comments on this page
http://www.foreverastudent.com/2011/09/interview-with-luca-l ampariello.html 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5229 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 26 of 132 27 September 2013 at 3:34pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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What would the topic be?
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| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6551 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 27 of 132 27 September 2013 at 3:42pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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What I find most frustrating about Clugston & Lewis is they censor comments so strictly. In this sense, they are
very similar. Although I often disagree with Kauffman, at least he is willing to let people air their opinions. Since Clugston censors his stuff, I'd be interested to hear what people think about his opinions on things. I think he occasionally makes some good points. Probably the original cause of his attacks on Kauffman is the fact that he calls himself a linguist. Is Kauffman a linguist? The dictionary says he is. But I believe most people think a linguist is a specialist in linguistics. In my opinion, Kauffman is a hell of a talented polyglot, but not a linguist. But that's just how Kauffman is - he likes to use lesser know definitions of certain words for some reason, for example "keen". Evidently it's not just a word that Wally said to the Beaver. If you don't know the word for "shoelace", you aren't fluent? I agree that you're probably not C2. It's a pretty common word in most languages, I assume. "Fluent" doesn't really mean anything to me, so it's hard to agree or disagree with the original statement. Who would do better learning a language from an isolated tribe - a linguist or a polyglot? I think a polyglot would hands down, but I could be wrong. Who would do better at documenting a language - a linguist almost certainly. I didn't really understand the hill tribe challenge, or the rules, but it seems pretty unfair that Steve would have to put up a large sum of money, come to Thailand and live in conditions he's not used to. Clugston would have a huge advantage, knowing Thai, and being relatively comfortable with his surroundings. Maybe documenting/learning a native American language would be a more level playing field. Is FLTR better than LingQ in every way? Not according to a friend of mine who is trying to get Thai on LingQ right now. He told me that you have to "populate the dictionary" yourself in FLRT, which is a big time killer for him. Fortunately, there is a guy who might do this for Thai, so Thai learners might be able to just download a ready-to-go LingQ-like tool to help them read. But I don't think that's the case for other languages. There's probably other advantages LingQ has over FLTR, but Clugston will never know about them due to his censorship. Edited by leosmith on 28 September 2013 at 5:24am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| leosmith Senior Member United States Joined 6551 days ago 2365 posts - 3804 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Tagalog | Message 29 of 132 27 September 2013 at 6:47pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Welcome back! How many ID's does that make now? Gotta be some sort of record. Are you posting because you miss your old buddy Zhuangzi? Those were the goog ol days. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| I'm With Stupid Senior Member Vietnam Joined 4174 days ago 165 posts - 349 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Vietnamese | Message 30 of 132 27 September 2013 at 7:39pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Presumably the connection is that Clugston managed to get into a slanging match in the comments section of that website too.
I looked at a few of his videos, and each one starts with the same message: you have to use your real name and real photo to comment. And then when you scroll down to the "Users comments" section, and you see him happily engaging in conversation with someone using a fake name and no photo. Apparently this rule only applies if you're going to criticise him. Stroke his ego, and he's more than happy to be flexible.
The main problem is that he doesn't actually make any points. He resorts to personal attacks and claims of authority. One of the most hilarious bits is when he attempts to draw parallels between himself, and what Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris did to religion. Now I like both of those writers, but one thing they both have in common is that they had little in the way of formal credentials in the areas they were writing about, and were far from engaged in active research on the subject. Now I was under the impression that this was the sort of person who we were supposed to not listen to, but it appears he's willing to make exceptions for people who agree with him. Perhaps even more ironic given that arguments from authority are one of the key things that Harris and Hitchens argued against in their books. I watched one of his videos that was titled in a way that would suggest an advice video. In about 8 minutes, there must've been at least 5 minutes of attacking other people, and in the end, his advice could be summed up as "successful learners need motivation," and "you need to talk with people in the language." Hardly ground-breaking stuff. The other thing that he does is lump everyone together as if they propose the same methodology. From what I've read, Steve Kaufman proposes massive input from reading for quite a long time before you attempt any meaningful output, whereas Benny Lewis proposes output from day one. They're polar opposite of each other, and the only reason he can criticise them both together is because he's in no way criticising the methodology, he's simply arguing from authority and saying "they have no formal qualifications, therefore they must be wrong." There might be legitimate criticisms of both methods, but you won't find them in his videos. And the final point is that you'd think a linguist would know that it is not authority that decides what words mean, it's usage. And so "linguist" is a perfectly acceptable description for someone who speaks a lot of languages. Perhaps even the most common and most understood usage. In fact, Scott Thornbury tells a story about how he had to explain that he wasn't "that kind of linguist" when asked by US customs how many languages he spoke. Anyone who speaks a lot of languages has every right to be referred to as a linguist. Perhaps this upsets Clugston with all the work it took for him to get the title (although by my reckoning, it takes far more time to become a polyglot than to get a masters degree). But it really is like doctors throwing a hissy fit that you can be called a doctor after doing a PhD in something other than medicine. Edited by I'm With Stupid on 27 September 2013 at 7:40pm 11 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5229 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 31 of 132 27 September 2013 at 8:10pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I agree. If he was an expert in second language acquisition, and he made videos saying these other guys are preaching methods that, empirically, have little support, well, hell, that'd be something. And if he said, there are better ways, which I know as a credentialed linguist, that'd be something. But all he seems to say is these other guys don't know how to do field linguistics (true, but relevance is not clear) and they have no credentials.
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| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5925 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 32 of 132 28 September 2013 at 3:11am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
I will not watch Clugston debate anybody.
Clugston seems very anxious to establish himself as the foremost authority on becoming a polyglot by flaunting his education (although I don't think he ever specifically states what credentials he actually has), but he has no people skills and I believe that most people just don't want to deal with his obnoxious ranting. EDIT: I corrected some typos and fixed a link. Edited by mick33 on 28 September 2013 at 7:57am 7 persons have voted this message useful |
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