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Clugston challenges polyglots to debate | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Lykeio Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4242 days ago 120 posts - 357 votes  | Message 49 of 132 28 September 2013 at 9:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well I might as well throw in my two cents, also as someone with a language background.
Firstly, I do agree with some elements of what Clugston is saying, there is a greater need for verified products and ideas, that these polyglots are in no real sense linguists and that there is a real anti-intellectual trend to some of Kauffman's vlogging. I, personally, also dislike a lot of what Kauffman says. But then I deal with this by not watching his videos... I feel Clugston's acerbic personality also puts me off and its hardly helping his cause. Certainly, I find his inelegant ranting to be unwatchable. Finally, on his comments on linguistics and philology. I find certain of his comments somewhat...idiosyncratic? I find it odd how he'll bring up philology as if it were a thing of the past, and then say that philologists aren't able to perform phonological and morphological sketches, deal with particles and so on. These are all skills created and defined by philologists...using philological terms...reflecting philological interests. I doubt I could, as he keeps on insisting, learn an undocumented language but that's largely due to a lack of field work training, philology certainly has the raw skillsets and reconstructing dead languages, identifying links, sound changes and morphological change etc. After all, it invented them and remains a vivacious element of modern linguistics. But this is a digression. His whole schleck just seems really odd to me, though I think that I do agree with the essence of some of what he says. 9 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4620 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 50 of 132 29 September 2013 at 12:50am | IP Logged | ||
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To be fair, Benny Lewis has never claimed to be a linguist. He's simply a guy who learns languages by going
to the countries where they are spoken and talking with people at every opportunity. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5922 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish | Message 51 of 132 29 September 2013 at 2:47am | IP Logged | ||
Edited by mick33 on 29 September 2013 at 7:59am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Baracuda Groupie United States Joined 5803 days ago 53 posts - 81 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French, Russian, German | Message 52 of 132 29 September 2013 at 6:24am | IP Logged | ||
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I can't believe Clugston has the gall to tell people that speak upwards of 10 languages
that they are doing it wrong. He just seems jealous of the attention that some of the polyglots receive online. He's just a hater. 9 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5332 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 53 of 132 29 September 2013 at 5:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am trying to think of what the comments would have been like if a woman polyglot would have spoken so
badly about her sister polyglots. Come on Serpent, Kerrie, Fasulye, MultieMae: should we show these guys what a real cat fight looks like? In case anyone for a second takes me seriously, I hasten to add that the only reason why I suggested it, is because then people would have seen how stupid this is. For some reason there is more tolerance for stupid, aggressive people when they are men. If a woman had gone on YouTube with a rant like this she would have been considered insane. I agree with him though, that linguists and polyglots are two different things. A linguist has studied linguistics, and may be fabulous at analysing languages, but a disaster at speaking them. A polyglot may speak 8 different languages but not know what a noun or a phoneme is. Neither is better than the other, but they are two different things. Personally I consider myself a hybrid as I have 10 years of language studies at a university under my belt, including linguistics, and I also speak several languages. If I were to chose between the two, I would however rather call myself polyglot than linguist, since I do in actual fact speak several languages, but if I were to give a lecture on linguistics, the lecture would have been over before people would have gotten their overcoat off. I give lectures on roses and tulips all over Norway, and I am quite good at it. But that does not make me a botanist, nor would I pretend to be.I fail to understand why people would pretend to be one thing, when they have every reason to be proud of their accomplishments without claiming credentials they do not have. I have listened too little to the three gentlemen concerned speaking languages I know well, to make a solid assessment of their abilities, but I can at least testify that I found Benny's blog on his experiences in China so motivating that I went out and got three Mandarin courses. As for the gentlemen on the video, I have not found any video of him speaking anything but English, so I cannot tell. I'll reserve my comments on his language skills until I have actually heard him speak. My ideal polyglot is one who speaks his or her languages fluently and with a great accent. And who does not feel the need to bash anyone else. So far those who have impressed me the most are Luca, Torbyrne (Richard Simcott) and MultiMae. Whether they do or do not make money based on their qualifications is really of no importance to me. If a person is good at teaching languages, and can offer a good product then I am fine with that. Of course if any of the people mentioned in the video are pretending to teach something they do not know, then that is fraud, and that I would definitely not approve of, but so far I have seen no evidence that this is the case. Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 29 September 2013 at 8:32pm 15 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 54 of 132 29 September 2013 at 6:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you, Solfrid, for your excellent and well-written summary.
I must confess, I'm a little bit uneasy about this thread. Clugston has a reputation for being upset about certain other polyglots. In the past, I've always chosen to ignore him, because I'm generally bored by personal conflict, and he seems to wind up involved in more conflicts than average. But if we spend seven pages discussing Clugston in fairly negative terms, then good manners would suggest that we ought to give him a chance to defend himself. And then I imagine what such a discussion would look like, and I cringe a bit. I fear, perhaps wrongly, that such a discussion would generate more conflict than actual insight. Speaking an ordinary forum member (with my "moderator hat" off), is there any way that we can focus the rest of this discussion on Clugston's arguments, and less on him as a person? I think that the personal issues have been pretty thoroughly discussed by now, and it might be worth moving on. Edited by emk on 29 September 2013 at 6:44pm 9 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 55 of 132 29 September 2013 at 9:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for that Emk. The whole thing turns my stomach as well.
Taking us in the direction Emk is saying, I would like to reiterate my question from before: does anyone know what qualifications Clugston has? I'm sure they exist. His story must be interesting, to say the least. Moving from being a self-defence instructor to linguist? Fascinating. Leaving aside the fact that he takes a combative approach (no surprise) to languages, can anyone tell us something about the man? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4620 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 56 of 132 30 September 2013 at 1:02am | IP Logged | ||
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I find it quite refreshing the way Benny Lewis and Steve Kaufman adopt somewhat layman stance. Their
arguments make language learning more accessible than what it would be if shrouded in academic terms. At the end of the day, the most effective language learners are those who engage willingly with the language and expose themselves to it. Academic prowess is nothing more than a contributory factor. 5 persons have voted this message useful |
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