Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5849 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map
| Message 9 of 19 07 March 2011 at 1:00pm | IP Logged |
Sorry, I tried to look up the word "astroturfing" (EDIT), but I can't find it in my dictionary. What does it mean?
Fasulye
Edited by Fasulye on 07 March 2011 at 3:11pm
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t123 Diglot Senior Member South Africa https://github.com/t Joined 5613 days ago 139 posts - 226 votes Speaks: English*, Afrikaans
| Message 10 of 19 07 March 2011 at 1:49pm | IP Logged |
I think it's supposed to be astroturfing with an f. It has to do with fake product placement/advertising, but the urban
dictionary has a better definition than I can give:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=astroturfing
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Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5849 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map
| Message 11 of 19 07 March 2011 at 3:10pm | IP Logged |
t123 wrote:
I think it's supposed to be astroturfing with an f. It has to do with fake product placement/advertising, but the urban
dictionary has a better definition than I can give:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=astroturfing |
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Thanks a lot for clarifying this expression, which I had never heard before. It's spelled "astroturfing" in the given link. As I understand the definition it means that somebody presents something popular such as polyglottery to promote a particular entity which is in this case his hairloss business.
Fasulye
Edited by Fasulye on 07 March 2011 at 4:58pm
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portunhol Triglot Senior Member United States thelinguistblogger.w Joined 6254 days ago 198 posts - 299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: German, Arabic (classical)
| Message 12 of 19 07 March 2011 at 4:07pm | IP Logged |
I've been wondering what to make of this guy for a while. I don't think that he just memorized the lines in all of those languages (although I suppose he could have). I get the feeling that he actually has spent some time studying all (or almost all) of those languages but only has a "foot-hold" in most of them. He's obviously conversant in Spanish, English and Italian.
The online language community has high standards and is not very understanding. If Mr. Floris wants to be taken seriously he's going to have to qualify his abilities. I don't think he's very interested in being taken seriously though. I think he mainly wants to sell his product. That's what the video is about, not languages.
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tmp011007 Diglot Senior Member Congo Joined 6071 days ago 199 posts - 346 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: French, Portuguese
| Message 13 of 19 07 March 2011 at 6:20pm | IP Logged |
astrowhat???
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing
oooh, nice word
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Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6870 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language
| Message 14 of 19 11 March 2011 at 12:37am | IP Logged |
Portunhol, why do you think this man has studied more of the language rather than just a few phrases from it?
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apparition Octoglot Senior Member United States Joined 6652 days ago 600 posts - 667 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), French, Arabic (Iraqi), Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Pashto
| Message 15 of 19 11 March 2011 at 1:37am | IP Logged |
It appears to me as if he's solicited translations of his spiel from native speakers of
those languages, then memorized them in order to spit back in this video. It is pretty
cool, but does not appear to be polyglottery on the level we might wish to see.
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portunhol Triglot Senior Member United States thelinguistblogger.w Joined 6254 days ago 198 posts - 299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: German, Arabic (classical)
| Message 16 of 19 11 March 2011 at 3:00am | IP Logged |
Journeyer wrote:
Portunhol, why do you think this man has studied more of the language rather than just a few phrases from it? |
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Because I don't know one way or the other. It is actually quite possible that he bought several assimil books and went through them. It is also possible that he spent a lot of time memorizing phrases that he doesn't understand. I actually think a mixture of the two scenarios is what really happened but I could be wrong and I recognize that.
I don't know and the naysayers on this forum do not know either. Instead of quickly imagining the most negative outcome possible and claiming I know something that I do not I choose to leave the door open to other possibilities.
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